> 


THE   WORN   DOORSTEP 


THE 
WORN  DOORSTEP 


BY 


MARGARET  SHERWOOD 


BOSTON 

LITTLE,   BROWN,   AND  COMPANY 
1917 


Copyright,  1916, 
BT  LITTLE,  BBOWX,  AND  COMPANY. 

All  rights  reserved 

Published,  September,  1916 

Reprinted,  October.  1016 

November,  11)16  (five  times) 

December,  1916    (five    times) 

February,  1917 


i.  J.    I'AEKHILL  *   CO.,  BoflTO»,  U.S.A. 


THE  WORN   DOORSTEP 


THE  WORN  DOORSTEP 

AUGUST  25,  1914.  At  last  I  have 
found  the  very  place  for  our 
housekeeping;  I  have  been  search 
ing  for  days:  did  you  know  it,  dear?  The 
quest  that  we  began  together  I  had  to 
follow  after  you  went  to  the  front;  and, 
through  the  crashes  of  tragic  rumours 
that  have  rolled  through  England,  I  have 
gone  on  and  on,  not  running  away  or  try 
ing  to  escape,  but  full  of  need  to  find  the 
right  corner,  the  right  wall  against  which 
I  could  put  my  back  and  stand  to  face 
these  great  oncoming  troubles.  I  have 
travrlk-d  by  slow  trains  across  quiet  coun 
try  which  does  not  as  yet  know  there  is 
war;  I  have-  driven  in  an  old-fashioned 
stage  or  post  wagon,  —  you  never  told 
me  that  there  were  such  things  left  in 
1 


THK    WORN    DOORSTEP 

your     country,  —  past     yellow     harvest 
fields  in  calm  August  weather;    I  have 
even  walked  for  miles  by  green  hedge 
rows,  which  wear  here  and  there  a  belated 
blossom,  searching  for  that  village  of  our 
dreams  where  our  home  should  be,  quiet 
enough  for  the  work  of  the  scholar,  green 
for  two  lovers  of  the  country,  and  grey 
with  the  touch  of  time.    I  knew  that  now 
it  could  be  almost  anywhere;   that  it  did 
not  matter  if  it  were  not  near  Oxford,  and 
it  seemed  to  me  that  I  should  rather  have 
it  a  bit --but  not  too  far  —  away  from 
the  "dreaming  spires."     So  I  went  on 
and  on,  with  just  one  thought  in  my  mind, 
because  I  was  determined  to  carry  out  our 
plan  to  the  full,  and  because  I  did  not 
dare  stay  still.     There's  a  great  strange 
pain  in  my  head  when  I  am  quiet,  as  if  all 
the  mountains  of  the  earth  were  pressing 
down  on  it,  and  I  have  to  go  somewhere, 
slip   out   from  under  them   before  they 
crush  me  quite. 

2 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

Often,  at  a  distance,  I  thought  that  I 
had  found  it;  thatched  roofs  or  red  tiles, 
or  a  lovely  old  Norman  church  tower 
would  make  me  sure  that  my  search  was 
done;  but  again  and  again  I  found  my 
self  mistaken,  I  can  hardly  tell  you  why. 
You  know  without  telling,  as  you  must 
know  all  I  am  writing  before  I  make  the 
letters,  and  yet  it  eases  my  mind  to  write. 
At  no  time  did  you  seem  very  far  as  I 
searched  hill  country  and  level  lands, 
watching  haystacks  and  flocks  of  sheep, 
sometimes  through  sunny  showers  of 
English  rain. 

But  now  I  have  discovered  our  village, 
the  very  one  that  I  dreamed  in  childhood, 
that  you  and  I  pictured  together,  and  I 
know  that  at  last  I  have  come  home.  I 
knew  it  by  the  rooks,  for  I  arrived  late  in 
the  afternoon,  and  the  rooks  were  flying 
homeward  to  the  great  elms  by  the  church, 

-groups  of  them,  here,  there,  and  every 
where,  black  against  the  sunset.     Such  a 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

chattering  and  gossiping,  as  they  went  to 
bed  in  the  treetops!  Such  joy  of  home 
and  bedtime!  I  knew  it  by  the  grey 
church  tower  in  its  shelter  of  green  leaves, 
and  the  ancient  little  stone  church  on  the 
top  of  the  gentle  hill  among  its  old,  old, 
lichen-covered  tombstones. 

The  village  homes,  in  a  straggling  row, 
looked  half  familiar;  the  grassy  meadow 
that  rolls  to  the  village  edge,  still  more 
so;  and  the  quaint  old  Inn,  where  I  spent 
the  night  and  where  I  am  writing  - 
surely  some  of  my  ancestors,  centuries 
ago,  slept  at  that  very  Inn,  for  I  half  re 
member  it  all,  —  low  ceilings,  latticed 
windows,  stone  floor,  and  great,  smother 
ing  feather  bed.  Everywhere,  indoors  and 
out,  I  am  aware  of  forgotten  chords  of 
sympathy.  Those  small  boys  in  short 
trousers,  trudging  home  on  tired  legs  and 
little  bare  feet  -  "  did  I  pass  that  way  a 
long  time  ago? "  Did  some  one  back  of 
me  in  the  march  of  life  —  my  ancestors 
4 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

came  from  this  East  country  —  grow  tired 
and  rebel  in  a  village  like  this  and  run 
away  to  America  ?  In  some  way,  by  mem 
ory,  by  prophecy,  all  seems  mine;  the 
wrorn  paths ;  the  hollowed  door-stones ;  the 
ruddy  faces  moving  up  and  down  the 
walled  streets,  and  the  quiet  under  the 
grass  in  the  churchyard.  And  you  are 
everywhere,  interpreting,  making  me  un 
derstand,  with  that  insight  compounded 
of  silent  humour  and  silent  sympathy.  I 
am  too  tired  to  do  anything  to-night  but 
have  my  tea  and  bit  of  toast  and  egg,  and 
warm  my  fingers  at  the  open  fire,  for  the 
evening  is  chill ;  but  to-morrow  I  shall  go 
searching  for  our  house,  and  I  know  I 
shall  find  it,  for  I  have  a  curious  sense  that 
this  is  not  only  the  place  for  my  home  with 
you,  but  that  some  far,  far  back  sense  of 
home  broods  here. 

The  grey  war-cloud  drifts  closer  and 
grows  darker.     Namur  has   fallen   into 
German  hands;  there  are  rumours  —  God 
5 


THE   WORN   DOORSTEP 

grant  that  they  are  not  true!  — that  the 
French  and  the  English  troops  are  re 
treating.  In  spite  of  the  entire  confidence 
of  the  people  here  in  their  island  security, 
there  is  fear  in  my  heart  for  England,  this 
England  which  seems  so  remote  from 
cruel  struggle,  as  if  created  in  some  mo 
ment  of  Nature's  relenting,  when  she  was 
almost  ready  to  take  back  her  fell  purpose, 
-  it  is  so  full  of  fragrances,  of  soft  col 
ours  of  flowers,  of  softer  green  of  hedge 
rows  and  meadows.  There  is  something 
in  you,  you  Englishmen  of  finer  type, 
shaped  by  this  beauty,  quiet  and  self- 
contained,  of  hill  and  dale  and  meadow. 
Surely  in  you  too  I  know  this  quietness, 
this  coolness,  the  still  ways  of  the  streams. 

August  26.  Past  the  grey  church,  and 
down  the  hill,  at  the  edge  of  the  great 
green  meadow,  and  a  bit  apart  from  the 
village,  I  found  our  house,  with  its  wooden 
shutters  and  its  white  front  door  closed,  a 
6 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

quaint  old  brick  cottage,  waiting  for  life 
to  come  to  it  again.  It  has  a  brick  front 
walk,  and  a  brick  wall  stands  about  it,  save 
at  the  back,  where  the  stream  that  skirts 
the  meadow  flows  at  the  very  garden 
edge.  Can  you  see  it,  the  wistaria,  the 
woodbine,  the  honeysuckle  over  the  wee 
porch,  the  climbing,  drooping,  straggling 
vines  that  make  the  whole  little  house  look 
oddly  like  a  Skye  terrier?  It  is  all  un 
kempt  ;  grass  grows  in  tufts  between  the 
bricks,  and  weeds  in  the  neglected  grass. 
The  chimney  needs  repairing;  some  of  the 
little  diamond  panes  in  the  latticed  win 
dows  are  broken,  alas!  I  did  not  venture 
inside  the  wrought-iron  gate,  for  the  en 
compassing  veneration  for  property  rights 
is  strong  upon  me;  not  in  the  British  Isles 
shall  I  be  caught  trespassing!  Can  you 
not  imagine,  as  I  can,  how  a  dainty  order, 
satisfying  even  your  fastidious  taste, 
could  grow  out  of  its  present  desolation, 
with  a  little  weeding  here,  a  little  trimming 
7 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

there,  a  nail,  a  bit  of  board,  a  few  bricks, 
—  surely  we  could  find  a  few  old  weath 
ered  ones  to  match.  There  must  be 
touches  of  the  new,  but  careful  preserva 
tion  of  all  the  old,  of  all  the  eloquent  worn 
edges  that  tell  of  the  coining  and  going 
of  past  life. 

Something  —  anything  —  to  keep  away 
the  thoughts  I  refuse  to  harbour.  I  can 
not,  I  can  not  even  yet,  think  of  the  mis 
ery  of  this  war.  It  beats  in  my  ears,  like 
great  hard  waves ;  it  clangs  and  clamours, 
strikes,  comes  in  imagined  horrible  shrill 
whistles  and  great  explosions.  There  is 
nothing  in  me  that  understands  war;  new 
tracks  will  have  to  be  beaten  out  in  my 
brain  before  I  can  grasp  any  of  it.  It  is 
a  vast,  unmeasured  pain  beyond  my  own 
pain. 

I  have  got  to  have  a  place  of  my  own  in 
which  to  face  them  both,  for  a  little  while, 
a  little  while,   where   I   may   stand  and 
think,  —  perhaps  even  pray. 
8 


THK    WORN    DOORSTEP 

No  one  was  about,  except  a  shaggy 
pony,  grazing  in  the  rich  green  meadow, 
with  a  rough  lock  of  hair  over  his  eyes.  I 
find  a  little  stone  bridge  across  the 
stream  and  try  to  make  his  acquaintance. 
He  lifts  his  head  and  looks  at  me  through 
his  forelock,  seems  to  respond  with  cor 
diality  to  my  overtures,  whinnies,  and 
even  takes  a  step  or  two  toward  me  as  I 
draw  near;  then,  when  I  can  almost  touch 
him,  gives  a  queer  little  toss  of  his  head, 
kicks  up  his  heels,  and  dashes  off  to  a  rise 
of  ground,  where  he  stands  \vith  a  trium 
phant  air,  his  legs  planted  wide  apart, 
seeming  to  say:  "  Such  be  forever  the  fate 
of  those  who  try  to  catch  and  harness 
me!"  Then  he  falls  to  grazing  again, 
keeping  one  eye  out  to  see  whether  I  am 
coming  near. 

Presently  came  an  old  man  with  a 
rake,  and  I  made  some  inquiries  about  the 
house,  but  the  haymaker's  dialect  wras  as 
hard  for  me  to  understand  as  mine  was 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

for  him.  I  learned  only  that  the  little 
'ouse  belonged  to  the  'All;  that  it  had 
been  occupied  by  one  of  the  functionaries 
at  the  'All ;  —  it  will  be  good  for  you,  you 
Englishman,  to  live  in  a  little  house  once 
inhabited  by  an  unimportant  person,  good 
for  you  to  forget  caste  and  class  and  bend 
a  bit,  if  need  be,  at  your  own  front  door! 
Like  yourself,  young  Master  went  with 
the  first  adventurers  to  the  war,  the  old 
man  said,  and  the  'All  was  closed.  And 
he  added,  with  significant  gestures  witli 
his  rake,  what  he  would  do  to  "  they 
Germans  ",  if  he  once  got  hold  of  them. 
I  judged,  by  the  red  satisfaction  in  his 
face,  that  the  wooden  rake  in  a  shaking 
old  hand  constituted  for  him  a  vision  of 
"  preparedness  for  war." 

So  there  it  stands,  on  the  edge  of  a 
great  estate  that  sweeps  out  to  eastward; 
low-lying  lines  of  green  in  the  west  mean 
forest,  and  that  soft  look  of  sky  and  cloud 
in  the  east  means  the  sea.  It  is  absolutely 
10 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

the  place  for  which  we  looked  so  long  and 
will  satisfy  the  home  sense,  so  strong  in 
hoth  of  us.  I  wonder  at  my  good  fortune 
in  finding  it,  as  I  carried  on  the  search 
alone,  and  I  refuse  to  entertain  the  idea 
that  I  may  not  have  it  for  my  own.  The 
roof  droops  low  over  the  windows;  there 
is  a  tall  poplar  hy  the  wrought-iron  gate 
way:  the  brick  wall,  vine-covered  in 
places,  will  shut  us  away  from  all  the 
world,  beloved.  Within  we  shall  plant 
our  garden,  and  light  our  fire  on  the 
hearth,  and  live  our  life  together,  you  and 
I,  just  you  and  I. 

August  27.  But  can  I  get  it?  I  am  in 
a  prolonged  state  of  suspense.  Nobody  in 
the  village  seems  to  know  anything,  but 
everybody  is  of  firm  conviction  that  some 
body  higher  up  knows  everything,  and 
that  all  is  well.  1  appealed  to  my  land 
lady;  she  very  pleasantly  informed  me 
with  an  air  of  great  wisdom  that  it  might 
11 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

be  I  could  'ave  it,  it  might  be  I  couldn't; 
nobody  could  say.  No,  she  could  not  tell 
me  to  whom  to  apply,  with  the  'All  closed, 
as  it  was,  'm,  and  the  Squire  away. 
Standing  —  there  was  barely  standing- 
place  —  in  her  own  over-furnished  sitting 
room,  filled  to  its  low  ceiling  with  bric-a- 
brac,  whatnots  with  unshapely  vases,  tall 
glass  cases  with  artificial  flowers  or  ala 
baster  vases  under  them,  porcelain  figures, 
-  one  a  genuine  purple  cow,  —  she 
seemed,  as  many  a  more  imposing  person 
on  this  side  of  the  water  and  the  other 
seems,  a  victim  of  property. 

"  An'  I  do  'ave  difficulty,  Miss,  in  get- 
tin'  about,"  she  said,  as  her  apron 
knocked  a  Dresden  china  shepherdess  and 
a  Spanish  guitar  player  off  an  over 
crowded  table;  "but  I  don't  quite  know 
what  to  do  about  it." 

"  A  broom!  "  I  suggested. 

"  Broom?  Oh,  it's  nicely  swept,  and 
everything  dusted  regularly  once  a  week, 
12 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

'm,"  she  assured  me.     Oh,  for  one  Ger 
man  bomb! 

Luncheon  time,  and  no  solution  of  my 
problem ;  a  futile  visit  to  the  postmistress, 
who  informed  me  that  I  should  have  to 
wait  until  the  war  was  over,  and  Master 
came  home  to  the  Hall.    I  was  meditating 
an  inquiry  at  the  vicarage,  though  that 
involved  more  audacity  than  I  can  easily 
summon,  when  my  landlord  came  riding 
home  on  a  big  bony  steed  and  had  a  con 
ference  with  his  wife  in  the  kitchen.    He, 
it  seems,   is   temporarily   agent   for   the 
property ;  he  has  the  keys  to  the  little  red 
liouse  and  to  my  future  destiny.     I  try 
hard  to  think  what  will  be  pleasing  to  so 
huge  and  so  important  a  personage,  as  I 
walk  down  the  village  street  at  his  side, 
two  steps  to  his  one.     An  unfortunate 
conjecture  about  the  retreat  of  the  Brit 
ish  brings  forth  the  emphatic  statement 
that  the  British  never  retreat.     With  a 
train  of  thought  of  which  I  am,  at  the 
13 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

time,  unconscious,  I  tell  him  that  I  am  an 
American;  he  listens  indifferently.  I  tell 
him  that  my  uncle  is  at  the  head  of  an 
important  New  York  banking  house;  he 
at  once  becomes  responsive  and  respectful. 
We  go  through  the  little  iron  gate  and  up 
the  brick  walk;  out  of  a  vast  pocket  he 
takes  an  old  wrought-iron  key  and  un 
locks  the  white  front  door. 

As  we  entered,  I  had  a  curious  sense 
that  you  were  inside;  I  never  draw  near 
a  closed  door  without  a  feeling  that  it  may 
open  on  your  face.  Instead,  there  was 
only  the  blankness  and  the  empty  odour  of 
a  house  long  closed,  and  yet  it  seemed  hos 
pitable,  as  if  glad  to  have  me  come.  I 
examined  every  inch  of  it,  peered  into  each 
corner,  and  explored  every  nook  and 
cranny.  It  is  just  as  it  should  be,  with 
low  ceilings,  old  brown  rafters,  and  brick 
fireplaces,  —  the  one  in  the  kitchen  has  a 
crane.  The  little  dining  room  is  panelled, 
the  living  room  wainscoted;  I  like  the  dull 
14 


HIE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

old  oak  woodwork  and  the  solidity  of 
rything,  which  seems  to  belong  to  an 
elder,  stable  order,  not  to  this  earth- 
quakey  world  of  to-day.  The  living  room, 
facing  the  south,  and  thus  the  meadow 
and  the  brook,  is  sunny,  but  not  over-light, 
with  its  window  seats  and  casement  win 
dows,  diamond-paned.  The  stairs  are 
narrow  and  a  bit  cramped,  but  my  land 
lord  of  the  Inn  gives  me  permission  —  ah, 
I  forgot  to  say  that  he  tells  me  I  may  have 
the  house  and  grounds  for  fifty  pounds  a 
year;  fifty  pounds  for  all  this  and  a  run 
ning  stream  too!  —  permission  to  make  a 
few  changes  which  I  hesitatingly  sug 
gested,  and  for  which  I  shall  pay,  as  the 
rent  is  low.  There  must  be  a  bathroom  - 
perhaps  water  can  be  piped  from  the 
stream:  a  partition  is  to  be  knocked  down, 
and  the  stairs  will  then  go  up  from  the 
living  room,  not  in  the  little  box  wherein 
they  are  at  present  enclosed.  Where  can 
I  find  an  old  stair  rail  and  newel  post 
15 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

suitable  for  the  old  house?  Mine  host 
will  himself  attend  to  the  roof  and  the 
chimneys ;  and  he  says  that  there  are  some 
discarded  diamond-paned  windows  lying 
in  an  outhouse  at  the  Inn,  from  which 
glass  may  be  taken  to  replace  those  that 
are  broken,  if  any  one  can  be  found  to  set 
it  properly. 

He  was  amused  that  I  wanted  them, 
amused  by  my  pleasure  in  the  old  and 
quaint.  If  he  had  his  way,  large  new 
panes  of  glass  should  go  into  all  windows 
wheresoever;  he  would  like  everything 
shiny  and  varnishy.  Naturally  I  did  not 
confess,  when  he  apologized  for  the  lack 
of  this  and  that,  that  I  was  glad  of  the 
inconveniences,  glad  of  relief  from  the 
mechanical  and  tinkling  comforts  of  our 
modern  life;  he  would  never  understand! 
To  speak  of  an  old-fashioned  American 
would  be  to  him  a  contradiction  in  terms; 
yet  in  some  ways  we  are  one  of  the  most 
conservative  people  on  earth,  holding  cer- 
16 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

tain  old  ways  of  thought  most  tenaciously. 
It  is  only  our  muscles  that  are  modern! 
I  am  very  like  a  Pilgrim  mother  in  my 
convictions  of  right  and  wrong. 

There  is  some  deep  reason  why  many 
Americans  care  so  profoundly  for  old 
buildings,  old  furnishings,  old  habits  which 
we  find  here ;  they  typify  inner  character 
istics  which  we  must  not  forget  in  a  young 
land  where  changes  come  too  swiftly. 
There  is  a  steadfastness  about  it  all ;  these 
old  stone  houses  wear  a  look  as  if  they  had 
been  built  for  something  more  immutable 
than  human  life.  Never  as  in  these  recent 
wanderings  have  I  had  this  sense  of  Eng 
land,  innermost  England,  of  that  endur 
ing  beauty  of  spirit  best  expressed  in 
Westminster  and  the  old  Gothic  churches; 
that  England  of  ancient  faiths  and  old 
reverences.  Delicate  carving  and  soft 
tinted  glass  bear  witness  to  the  richness 
of  inherited  spiritual  life  and  make  visible 
the  soul  of  a  people  grown  line,  old,  and 
17 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

wise.  Old  shields,  grey  with  hoary  dust, 
still  hang  on  the  tombs  of  those  who  have 
fought  and  conquered,  or  have  been  de 
feated;  a  sense  of  old  sacredness  lingers 
at  Oxford's  heart,  —  and  yours.  There 
is  something  here  which  not  all  the  sins 
and  shortcomings  and  decadences  of  con 
temporary  life  can  change;  not  the  lux 
ury  and  the  selfishness  of  titled  folk  whose 
high  glass-guarded  walls  shut  miles  of 
green  land  away  from  common  people; 
not  the  mistakes  —  and  they  are  many  — 
of  the  government.  Back  of  all  this,  and 
beyond,  is  a  something  which  means  keep 
ing,  as  no  other  nation  keeps,  the  old  and 
sacred  fire,  safeguarding  civilization  from 
the  over-new,  the  merely  efficient,  the  un- 
remembering. 

My  new  abode  is  lowly  and  cozy,  with  a 
fine  simplicity  in  the  antique  furniture, 
carved  chest,  and  plain  chairs.  The  fun 
damental  things  are  here;  you  should  see 
the  walnut  table  in  the  living  room,  with 
18 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

its  deep  glow  of  red-brown  colour.  There 
must  be  some  new  tilings,  of  course,  fresh 
chintzes,  linen,  kitchen  utensils,  but  for 
the  most  part  only  oil  and  turpentine  and 
a  pair  of  good  red  sturdy  English  arms 
are  needed  to  remove  a  certain  dinginess. 

So  I've  a  home  of  my  own,  though 
earth  crashes  and  kingdoms  fall  and  a 
comet  strikes  against  us  and  puts  us  out. 
For  a  little  I  have  a  fortified  spot  wherein 
to  defy  the  worst  that  time  can  do.  I  am 
a  householder,  on  my  own  plot  of  ground, 
crossing  and  re-crossing  my  own  thres 
hold;  and  the  big  wrought-iron  key  is  in 
my  hand.  There  are  ashes  still  upon  the 
hearth,  —  from  whose  fire?  New  flame 
shall  go  up  from  the  old  grey  ashes, - 
the  central  spark  of  home  shall  be  rekin 
dled  here;  and  that  is  the  whole  story  of 
human  life. 

How  fortunate,  and  how  unusual,  in  so 
small  a  house,  that  the  hall  leads  all  the 
way  through  from  green  to  green!    We 
19 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

shall  get  all  the  breezes  that  blow,  for  the 
house  faces  the  west,  as  all  houses  should 
face;  and  always  and  forever  we  shall 
hear  the  stream.  There's  a  step  there  at 
the  back,  down  to  the  garden  walk,  that 
you  must  remember,  you  who  are  so 
absent-minded. 

- 1  keep  forgetting  that  you  are  dead. 

September  6.  I  have  been  away  for  a 
week,  a  week  in  which  I  have  not  dared 
leave  one  moment  unoccupied.  To  keep 
my  sanity,  I  must  be  busy  all  the  time; 
life  cannot  be  cut  short  in  this  way. 
When  great  forces  have  begun  to  stir 
within  you,  like  the  gathering  of  all 
waters  far  and  near,  you  cannot  safely 
stop  them  all  at  once ;  I  must  have,  in  the 
weeks  to  come,  some  outlet  for  this  surg 
ing  energy. 

London  is  quiet,  and  awful  with  the 
self-control  of  great  tension.  The  war- 
terror  mounts,  though  few  speak  of  it; 
20 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

the  Germans  have  crossed  the  Marne; 
the  French  government  has  moved  to 
Bordeaux,  and  all  the  world  seems  totter 
ing.  Back  in  my  charmed  village,  I  wait 
and  listen.  They  would  not  take  me  at 
the  front;  did  you  know  that,  the  day 
after  you  left,  I  made  an  attempt  to 
follow?  No  training,  and  physically  un 
fit,  was  the  verdict.  I  thought  that  I 
could  perhaps  prove  to  you  in  ret  that  of 
which  I  could  not  convince  you  by  argu 
ment  in  our  dispute  the  day  we  walked  to 
Godstow,  —  that  women  have  the  kind  of 
courage  possessed  by  men. 

I  live  at  the  Inn  during  these  days 
while  my  house  is  being  put  in  order.  A 
gla/icT  lias  been  found  who  can  re-set  the 
old  diamond  panes;  carpenter  and 
plumber  are  hard  at  work.  The  hideous 
wall-papers  in  the  chambers  have  been 
scraped  off;  they  were  so  ugly  that  they 
actually  hurt.  You  always  told  me,  you 
remember,  that  I  minded  too  much  the 
21 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

things  that  make  for  ugliness,  that  my 
eye  was  too  sensitive  to  evil-coloured  and 
unshapely  things,  and  that  I  must  live 
more  in  the  world  of  thought.  The  con 
trast  between  these,  in  their  wicked  pur 
ples  and  magentas,  and  the  wonderful 
cottage  itself  with  its  dim  beauty  of  old 
brick  and  dusky  panelling,  makes  one 
wonder  at  the  potential  depravity  of  the 
heart  of  modern  man  or  woman !  There's 
a  shop  in  London,  —  I  was  going  to  take 
you  there,  —  where  they  have  reproduc 
tions  of  quaint  old  papers,  the  kind  made 
a  hundred  years  ago,  with  little  land 
scapes,  and  sheep  and  shepherds,  and  odd 
flower  designs.  I  chose  three  of  these, 
and  they  are  going  on  at  this  minute;  I 
must  go  to  see  that  they  piece  the  two  bits 
of  the  shepherdess  together  neatly  and  do 
not  leave  her  head  and  her  beribboned  hat 
dangling  several  inches  above  her  em 
broidered  bodice.  It  is  a  relief  to  escape 
from  the  purple  cow  and  the  hundred  and 
22 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

one  china  abominations  in  this  sitting 
room. 

My  landlady,  fingering  her  black  alpaca 
dress  apron,  assures  me  as  I  go,  that  the 
best  of  news,  'm,  has  come  from  the  front ; 
that  the  Germans  are  in  full  retreat,  and 
the  French  and  the  British  are  nearing 
Berlin!  If  only  this  insular  confidence 
that  for  Britons  there  is  no  defeat  be  not 
too  rudely  broken! 

Don  went  with  me;  I  went  to  Oxford 
to  get  him  during  my  wreek  away.  I  am 
so  glad,  so  very  glad  that  you  let  me  have 
him  when  you  went  to  war.  He  potters 
along  behind  me  or  runs  ahead,  with  all 
his  questing  little  fox-terrier  soul  in  his 
eyes,  sure,  like  myself,  that  around  some 
corner,  or  on  some  blessed  rise  of  ground, 
we  shall  meet  you.  At  each  fresh  disap 
pointment  he  turns  to  me  with  that  look 
of  perfect  trust  in  his  eyes  that  I,  some 
day  when  it  seems  fit,  will  give  you  back 
to  him.  Within  five  minutes,  at  his  first 
U 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

visit  to  the  little  red  house,  he  had  sniffed 
every  corner,  and  he  dropped  with  a  deep 
sigh  of  content  on  the  warm  brick  walk, 
knowing  the  place  for  his  own. 

The  cloistered  Oxford  gardens,  with 
their  incredibly  smooth  grass,  were  un 
changed,  but  the  immemorial  quiet  is 
broken.  Your  Oxford  is  a  new  Oxford, 
awake,  struggling,  suffering,  nursing  the 
wounded,  while  the  noblest  of  her  sons 
follow  you  to  the  war.  Thinking  of  all 
these  things  as  I  walk,  I  decide  not  to  go 
to  the  house,  after  all ;  there  is  a  sound  of 
hammering  and  an  air  of  disquiet.  I  cross 
the  little  stone  bridge  and  follow  the 
stream;  this,  like  the  pony,  is  a  new 
neighbour  with  which  I  must  become  ac 
quainted,  and  it  proves  more  friendly 
than  that  other.  There  is  a  touch  of  Sep 
tember  gold  everywhere,  of  autumn  per- 
fectness  in  things,  that  belies  wTong  any 
where  upon  the  earth.  And  all  the  old 
days  float  down  the  stream;  something, 
24 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

the  way  of  the  water  with  the  grasses,  the 
ripple  of  the  water,  brings  back  May,  and 
my  first  English  spring,  and  you. 

Do  you  remember  that  my  very  first 
glimpse  of  you  was  at  the  Union?  You 
were  debating,  very  convincingly,  on  the 
subject  of  disarmament,  and  proved  the 
possibility,  the  practicability,  of  peace 
among  nations.  I  was  idly  interested  in 
you;  Gladys  had  whispered  that  you 
were  one  of  her  friends.  That  night,  — 
but  never  again,  —  you  were  just  one  of 
a  type  to  me,  with  the  fine,  lean,  English 
look  of  race,  the  fine  self-control  of  every 
nerve  and  emotion  and  muscle.  I  noticed 
that  you  were  already  beginning  to  have 
a  touch  of  the  scholar  stoop,  and  that  you 
were  a  shade,  just  a  shade,  too  slender. 
It  was  quite  a  surprise,  and  something  of 
a  blow  to  me,  to  find  you  English  men 
not,  on  the  whole,  so  stalwart  as  the  men 
in  America.  All  our  lives  we  have  read 
of  the  hale  and  hearty  John  Bull,  yet  our 
25 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

first  glimpse  of  you  makes  us  think  that 
John  Bull  and  Uncle  Sam  will  have  to 
change  places  in  the  caricatures  if  this 
transformation  keeps  on. 

The  hardest  thing  in  the  world  for  me 
to  understand  is  that  the  great  things  of 
life  may  hang  on  mere  trifles.  If  I  had 
not,  acting  on  a  moment's  impulse,  prom 
ised  to  go  into  lodgings  with  Gladys  in 
Oxford  because  she  would  go  there  to 
study  Celtic,  Icelandic,  and  Greek,  I 
should  never  have  known  you,  never  have 
walked  with  you  in  glory  through  an  Eng 
lish  spring,  never  have  picked  crocuses  in 
Iffley  meadows  and  anemones  in  Bagley 
wood,  never  have  known  that  green  rip 
pling  beauty  of  Oxford  stream  and 
meadow  and  the  piercing  joy  of  life  and 
love  that  came  with  you.  And  now  - 

The  vastness  of  my  loss  I  can  not  even 
grasp;  my  world  is  swept  away  from 
under  my  feet,  and  I  am  alone,  with  noth 
ing  to  stand  on,  nothing  to  reach  in  space. 
26 


TIIK    WORN    DOORSTKT 

Dying  myself  could  hardly  mean  such 
utter  letting  go;  I  am  aware  only  of  a 
great  blankness.  I  have  not  even  tried  to 
measure  my  disaster,  to  understand.  I 
shall  have  all  the  rest  of  my  life  to  learn 
to  understand;  I  come  of  a  long-lived 
race. 

That  which  comes  more  often  than  my 
sense  of  loss  is  the  sense  of  my  part  in 
letting  you  go,  making  you  go!  You  re 
member  that  August  afternoon  when  we 
drifted  down  the  river,  for  you  even  for 
got  to  row;  the  trailing  willow  branches 
ruffled  our  hair  and  gently  took  off  my 
hat.  It  was  a  lazy,  sunshiny,  misty  after 
noon,  such  a  happy  afternoon,  except  for 
the  war-cloud  beyond  the  peace  and  the 
exquisite  grey  and  green  calm  of  Oxford. 
You  were  wondering,  idly  enough,  about 
war;  how  was  it  to  be  justified?  What 
right  bad  England,  with  her  love  of 
peaceful  enlightenment,  to  take  this  swift 
plunge  into  the  awful  horror?  And  you 
27 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

went,  my  Lord  Hamlet,  with  that  deepen 
ing  look  which  showed  a  soul  drawn  far 
within,  into  a  long  philosophic  discussion 
as  to  whether  war  is  ever  justifiable;  no 
one  could  adjust  philosophic  niceties  of 
thought  better  than  you.  Could  a  man 
of  ethical  conviction,  without  outrage  to 
his  better  self,  go  into  that  barbaric  hell? 
All  the  time  that  your  intellect  was  bal 
ancing,  weighing,  and  deciding  "no!" 
old  impulses  were  stirring,  old  heroic  fin 
gers  were  tugging  from  their  graves,  old 
simple-minded  forebears  were  alive  and 
awake,  impelling  you. 

The  green,  lovely  banks  grew  dim ;  the 
shadows  lengthened  across  the  rippling 
water,  and  sunset  flushed  the  western  sky 
beyond  the  overhanging  branches,  while 
you  fought  it  out.  When  you  turned  and 
asked  me  squarely,  what  could  I  say?  It 
had  seemed  so  piteously,  cruelly  simple  to 
me  from  the  first,  so  simple  and  so  great! 
Of  course,  I  come  of  the  practical  Amer- 
28 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

ican  race.  Back  of  me  lie  generations  of 
ancestors  who  have  had  to  act  and  act 
quickly  without  exhausting  the  ultimate 
possibilities  of  thought  on  any  subject.  I 
do  not  mean  that  they  have  clone  unjusti 
fiable  things,  but  that  they  have  had  to 
take  life  at  the  quick.  When  the  Indian 
brandished  his  tomahawk  inside  the  door 
at  the  baby  in  the  cradle,  some  one  had  to 
shoot  and  shoot  instantly,  without  stop 
ping  to  ask  any  authority  whether  shoot 
ing  was  wrong.  That  actually  happened 
in  my  family;  it  was  a  little  great-great- 
great-great-great-grandmother  of  mine. 
Her  Pilgrim  father  was  quite  right. 
Even  if  his  mind  told  him  that  it  was 
unmg,  which  I  judge  was  not  the  case, 
there  was  something  in  him  deeper  down 
and  farther  back  than  mere  intellect;  he 
did  the  right  thing  and  did  it  instinctively, 
Lord  Hamlet.  Of  course,  in  reality,  his 
intellectual  problem  had  been  settled 
when  he  loaded  his  gun. 
89 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

All  life  is  transition,  and  always  has 
been.  As  I  understand  it,  with  one's  an 
cestor  one  has  to  load  one's  gun  with  one 
hand,  while  reaching  forward  with  the 
other  to  one's  descendant  for  the  pipe  of 
peace.  One  has  to  keep  collected,  cen 
tered,  ready  to  do  one's  utmost  in  any 
need;  the  luxury  of  the  last  shade  of  rea 
soning  is  denied  us  as  yet :  our  task  is  not 
to  fail  at  the  crisis. 

What  could  I  say,  when  you  asked  me, 
except  the  cruelly  hard  thing  which  I  did 
say?  Back  of  me,  as  back  of  you,  lie  the 
san  e  fighting,  plucky  ancestors.  The 
same  heroic  impulses  that  stirred  their 
dust  stir  mine,  and  yours,  —  alas  that  it 
has  but  feminine  dust  to  stir  in  me!  To 
me,  as  to  you,  there  is  but  one  answer  in 
the  world  to  a  question  like  that.  There 
had  never  been  any  real  doubt  in  my  mind 
as  to  what  you  would  do;  I  think  that 
there  had  never  been  any  real  doubt  in 
your  own  mind.  In  the  great  moments, 
30 


THE    WORN    DOORSTKP 

life  seems  neither  right  nor  wrong,  but 
something  greater;  it  seems  inevitable. 

Poor  Belgium  and  the  baby  in  the  cra 
dle  come  back  to  my  mind  together,  the 
highly  "  efficient  "  tomahawk  replaced  by 
the  highly  "efficient"  siege  guns.  But 
even  apart  from  the  high  justice  of  this 
issue,  England  was  in  trouble,  England 
was  fighting.  What  was  there  for  you 
to  do  but  help?  I  said  only  the  one  word 
"  go,"  and  even  now  I  can  recall  the  still 
ness  and  the  wash  of  the  ripples  against 
our  boat  and  through  the  grasses.  The 
silence  of  perfect  beauty  rested  on  sky 
and  tree  and  water,  and  the  river  no 
longer  seemed  a  little  inland  stream  flow 
ing  softly  through  grassy  meadows  with 
retarding  locks,  but  a  flowing  passageway 
to  some  great  sea. 

The  days  that  followed  I  count  off  on 
my  fingers  as  one  counts  a  rosary;  there 
were  not  many,  not  so  many  as  our  pray 
ers.  Such  little  scraps  of  them,  mere 
31 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

fragments,  come  to  me,  shining  fragments 
which  I  treasure  and  shall  always  treasure 
like  bits  of  priceless  jewels:  in  all  my 
mental  store  there  is  nothing  quite  so 
precious.  I  was  busy  every  minute,  try 
ing  to  console  your  mother  and  your  sis 
ter,  who  thought  you  ought  not  to  go; 
trying  to  make  them  see.  It  is  as  if  the 
sun  were  still  illuminating  those  days, 
making  them  forever  radiant.  It  seemed 
enough  to  live,  to  try,  to  give  one's  all,  not 
knowing;  it  was  not  hard  then;  nothing 
could  be  hard  in  moments  of  exaltation 
like  those. 

They  were  full  too  of  homely  toil ;  such 
queer  things  we  had  to  do  in  getting  you 
ready,  dear.  Of  course  you  were  not  a 
trained  soldier;  how  to  become  a  trained 
soldier  in  a  week  of  short  days  is  a  harder 
problem  than  many  a  one  in  philosophy. 
When  you  decided  that  you  would  be  a 
despatch  bearer  and  join  the  motorcycle 
brigade,  because  thus  you  could  go  to  the 
32 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

front  sooner,  I  am  proud  that  I  did  not 
say  one  word  of  protest,  though  I  knew 
that  it  was  the  most  dangerous  task  of  all. 
Being  a  despatch  bearer  seemed  a  fitting 
service  for  an  intellectual  leader. 

How  we  laughed  as  you  practised  ri 
ding!  Lord  Hamlet  on  a  motorcycle,  with 
no  time  for  thought,  no  time  for  scruple! 
How  we  searched  out  rough  bits  of  road 
and  watched  you  try  to  cross  a  newly- 
mown  meadow,  where  late  poppies,  I  re 
member,  were  blossoming  in  the  stubble. 
Once  you  struck  a  stone  and  fell,  and 
your  mother  amazed  you  by  crying  out. 
I  laughed  and  horrified  her;  but  I  kissed 
its  handles  before  you  went.  The  motor 
cycle  had  been  to  me  the  most  hateful  of 
modern  inventions,  inexcusable,  unmen 
tionable.  And  here  it  became  a  symbol 
of  dauntless  courage  and  highest  service; 
beyond  the-  bravery  necessary  for  a  charge 
in  battle  is  the  bravery  needed  here;  this 
evil,  roaring,  puffing  thing  might  turn 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

into  the  chariot  that  would  carry  you  over 
the  borders  of  the  sun. 

That  one  brief  hour  that  we  found  to 
steal  away  to  Bagley  wood  lingers  yet. 
The  anemones  were  gone,  but  all  about 
was  the  soft  midsummer  murmur,  and  the 
ripe  fulness  of  August  life.  What  prac 
tical  things  we  talked  about!  I  think  that 
we  sent  you  out  fitted  up  as  well  as  any 
German  soldier  of  them  all.  Who,  in  the 
Kaiser's  army,  had  a  more  complete  or 
smaller  sewing  kit?  Who  had  thread 
wound  off  on  very  diminutive  bits  of 
cardboard  to  save  the  space  that  spools 
would  take,  —  white  linen  and  black  linen 
and  khaki  coloured,  all  very  strong? 
What  Teuton  could  challenge  you  on  the 
score  of  buttons?  It  wras  good,  it  was  very 
good,  in  your  mother  to  let  me  help. 

You  thought  I  never  wavered;    when 

you  were  doubting,  I  was  sure ;  when  you 

were  sure,  —  you  never  knew  that  I  wrote 

you  a  note  that  last  night  and  took  back 

34 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

my  decision,  saying  that  thinkers  had 
their  own  separate  task,  and  that  you 
should  stay.  I  burned  it.  ...  I  would 
not  have  you  back,  dear,  if  it  meant  giving 
up  that  inmost  you  I  knew  in  those  glori 
fied  few  days.  You  have  fulfilled  your 
self. 

September  15.  Who  is  going  to  keep 
house  for  me  —  that  is  the  problem? 
Somebody  there  must  be  to  cook  and  clean 
and  polish ;  a  staff  composed  of  one  British 
female  is  what  I  need,  for  I  can  do  many, 
very  many  things  myself. 

Mine  host  and  my  landlady  took  coun 
sel  ;  I  let  them  do  a  great  deal  of  thinking 
for  me,  for  their  minds  are  rusty  from  dis 
use;  you  can  actually  hear  a  kind  of 
creaking  when  they  try  to  make  them  go. 
They  finally  decided  that  I  was  to  drive 
in  a  pony  cart  to  a  village  off  to  eastward, 
to  consult  Madge  and  Peter  Snell,  man 
and  wife,  both  from  a  different  part  of 
35 


THE    WORN   DOORSTEP 

the  country,  lately  employed  at  the  Hall 
as  under-cook  and  gardener,  now  out  of 
work  because  the  Hall  is  closed.  I  read 
ily  agreed ;  yes,  I  was  used  to  driving,  and 
the  directions  —  first  turn  at  the  left, 
then  a  bit  of  road  and  a  turn  at  the  right, 
'm,  and  then  a  long  stretch  across  a  dike 
to  a  stone  bridge  and  a  stream  and  a  vil 
lage  spire  —  seemed  clear  enough. 

But  when  my  equipage  is  drawn  up  at 
the  Inn  door,  whom  do  I  see  but  my  way 
ward  friend  of  the  meadow,  harnessed  to 
an  absurd  little  basket-cart  as  diminutive 
as  he.  I  am  delighted  to  see  him;  is  the 
pleasure  mutual?  He  gives  me  one  look 
out  of  his  eyes  that  seems  to  say  he  will  be 
even  with  me  yet ;  Don  leaps  to  a  place  of 
honour  in  the  cart,  and  we  go  flying  down 
the  village  street  with  sparks  flashing  from 
the  iron-shod  little  hoofs.  Drive?  Yes,  I 
am  accustomed  to  driving  horses,  but  not 
Pucks,  not  changelings;  I  never,  never 
drove  a  mischievous  kitten  fastened  to  a 
36 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

baby  carriage!  And  that  little  "trap" 
was  a  trap  indeed!  What  breed  my  pony 
is,  as  mortals  reckon  tilings,  I  do  not 
know;  lie  is  too  big  for  a  Shetland,  too 
little  for  a  horse;  perhaps  he  is  an  Ex- 
moor  pony,  or  the  product  of  some  north 
ern  heath.  We  go  gaily  to  the  left,  some 
what  perilously  near  a  corner  at  the  right, 
and  we  are  out  racing  over  a  long  dike 
built  across  what  was  once  a  low-lying 
sea-meadow.  Don  looks  up  at  me  with 
vast  enjoyment  in  his  eyes,  and  that  little 
quiver  of  the  face  that  means  a  fox-terrier 
smile. 

About  half-way  across  we  come  to  a 
ualc  :  there  is  nothing  to  do  but  for  me 
to  get  out  to  open  it,  and  this  I  do.  Swift 
as  a  Hash,  my  Puck  whirls  about  and  goes 
dashing  for  home;  holding  tightly  to  the 
reins,  I  run  also,  latighing  as  I  have  not 
laughed  for  days.  Don,  with  his  paws  on 
the  edge  of  the  cart,  barks  furiously. 
Pulling  and  dragging  with  all  my  might, 
37 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

at  length  I  stop  the  pony.  The  little 
wretch  looks  at  me  almost  respectfully  as 
I  turn  him  about,  and  he  trots  meekly 
back;  he  was  only  trying  me  out,  to  see 
of  what  stuff  I  was  made.  He  stood  as 
firmly  as  the  Tower  of  London  as  I  shut 
the  gate  and  climbed  into  the  cart.  Then 
came  the  stream  and  the  stone  bridge  and 
the  village  spire ;  and  a  row  of  small  gar 
den  plots  with  yellow,  late  summer  things 
blossoming  in  them,  and  Madge  and  Peter 
standing  by  a  garden  gate. 

I  knew  at  first  glance  that  they  must 
both  come ;  now  that  I  think  of  it,  I  have 
quite  a  garden,  though  it  will  seem  little 
to  one  who  has  worked  at  the  'All;  there 
are  always  heavy  things  to  be  done  about 
the  kitchen,  and  Peter  knows  more  than 
he  will  admit  about  the  drudgery  neces 
sary  to  sustain  human  life.  Peter,  it 
seems,  has  been  a  soldier,  has  served  in 
the  South  African  war,  and  is  a  time- 
expired  man  who  has  beaten  his  sword  into 
38 


THE    WORN    DOORSTKP 

a  ploughshare,  —  or  is  it  a  pruning 
hook?  But  none  of  his  accomplishments 
is  my  real  reason;  the  half-belligerent  af 
fection  on  the  face  of  husband  and  wife 
slums  me  that  they  should  not  be  sepa 
rated. 

Madge,  the  look  of  anxiety  already  lift 
ing  from  her  smooth  and  comely  face,  — 
one  sees  that  look  here  in  many  of  the  un 
employed,  —  looks  questioningly  at  Peter 
when  I  extend  my  invitation.  I  assure 
him  that  I  need  a  man  to  look  after  the 
garden  and  the  pony;  at  this  Puck  pricks 
up  his  ears  and  gives  me  a  half  glance. 
Yes,  I  have  decided  to  have  him,  if  I  may, 
for  my  very  own.  There  is  a  remote 
something  in  Peter's  gait  and  bearing  that 
suggests  the  soldier,  but  it  is  the  soldier 
whose  long  leisure  re-acts  against  the  dis 
cipline. 

"  But  perhaps  you  were  thinking  of  go 
ing  to  the  war?  "  I  ask. 

"  No,  Miss,"  said  Peter,  "  I  weren't." 
39 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

He  spoke  so  emphatically  that  I  may 
have  raised  my  eyebrows ;  perhaps  I  shook 
my  head.  I  shall  be  afraid  of  borrowing 
unconsciously  some  of  the  pony's  ges 
tures;  these  strong  personalities  always 
leave  their  impress. 

"  War,"  said  Peter  firmly,  "  is  against 
my  principles.  I  am  a  socialist." 

"  It's  a  fine  way  to  keep  from  serving 
King  and  Country,  being  a  socialist,"  said 
Madge  unkindly.  Madge  is  evidently  not 
progressive. 

"  My  fellow  man,"  said  Peter,  striking 
the  gate  post  with  a  heavy  fist,  "  is  more 
to  me  than  King  or  'Ouse  of  Lords." 

"  Or  fellow  woman,  either,"  murmured 
Madge,  thinking  that  I  did  not  hear. 

From  these  advanced  radical  theories 
Madge  and  I  turn  back,  as  women  will,  to 
the  old  and  homely  needs  of  human  life. 
She  fingers  her  apron. 

"  I'm  sure,  Miss,  if  the  laundry  could 
be  put  out  - 

40 


THE    \\OKX    DOORSTEP 

"  Yes." 

"And    a    charwoman    for    the    rough 
^•nibbing  - 

"  Yes." 

"  And  if  you  wouldn't  mind  me  know 
ing  little  about  waiting  at  table  - 

'  With  but  one  person  in  the  family, 
that  isn't  very  complex,"  I  say  reassur 
ingly.  Don  looks  reproachfully  at  me; 
was  I  forgetting  him? 

I  watched  Don  to  see  how  he  would 
take  them ;  his  manner  was  perfection,  - 
polite  but  distant,  refusing  any  intimate 
advances,  but  refraining  from  growling. 
There  was  a  certain  approving  conde 
scension  in  his  air,  as  if  he  thought  they 
\\«TC  quite  well  in  tlieir  way.  He  never 
for  a  moment  forgets  that  he  is  a  gentle 
man's  dog,  and  his  flair  for  social  distinc 
tions  is  as  fine  as  that  of  any  of  his  fellow 
Oxford  dons.  That  delicate  snobbery 
showed  to-day  in  his  air  of  connoisseur- 
ship  while  lie  weighed  the  matter  with 
41 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

daintily  snuffing  nose  and  then  assumed 
an  air  of  invitation  to  these  two  to  come 
and  keep  their  place. 

I  was  delighted  when  they  said  that 
they  would  come,  and  we  trotted  merrily 
home  to  the  shining  companionship  of  the 
hearth  fire,  flickering  on  pewter  pots  and 
copper  pans  as  on  my  landlady's  red 
cheeks ;  to  the  comfort  —  ah,  that  I,  a 
twentieth-century  American,  dare  confess 
it  —  of  a  feather  bed ! 

September  29.  Here  I  live  in  mine 
own  hired  house,  like  the  gentleman  in  the 
Bible,  —  who  was  it,  —  Paul?  I  hope 
only  that  he  had  one  half  the  sense  of  en 
tire  possession  that  is  mine.  I  look  at 
Madge  and  Peter,  busy  in  kitchen  and 
garden,  at  Don,  guarding  the  little  iron 
gate,  at  the  pony  grazing  beyond  the 
stream,  and  I  feel  like  a  feudal  lord.  Es 
pecially  do  I  feel  so  when  we  rout  out  the 
utensils  in  the  kitchen,  —  knives,  forks, 
42 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

skillets.  Some  of  them  surely  antedate 
the  feudal  era;  they  were  probably  left  by 
the  cave  men;  their  prehistoric  shape,  in 
its  ancient  British  clumsiness,  looks  as  if 
it  might  have  archaeological,  if  not  practi 
cal,  value.  I  shall  use  them  for  garden 
ing;  the  forks  will  be  a  great  help  in 
wrestling  with  mother  earth. 

Wrestle  I  do,  indoors  and  out;  I  dare 
not  be  idle,  and  besides,  I  like  to  do  these 
things.  The  Vicar's  lady,  passing,  is 
shocked  to  see  me  scraping  the  putty  off 
of  my  new-old  diamond-paned  windows; 
but  somebody  had  to  get  it  off;  Madge 
couldn't,  so  why  not  I?  Madge  watches 
me  working  about,  torn  between  her  old 
attitude  of  maid  at  the  Hall,  with  its  fixed 
ideas  as  to  what  the  gentry  should  do,  and 
a  something  new  that  is  slowly  creeping 
into  her  mind.  Throughout  England,  I 
am  told,  the  gentry  are  doing  things  they 
used  not  to  do,  —  for  economy,  for  pos 
sible  service  to  the  country  in  its  day  of 
43 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

need.  And  it  is  slowly  dawning  on  us  all 
that  its  need  is  great.  The  Germans  have 
been  halted  on  the  Marne,  and  we  breathe 
more  easily,  but  it  is  rumoured  that  they 
have  brought  their  great  siege  guns  up  to 
Antwerp,  and  the  poor  Belgians  are 
flocking  over  here  in  hordes. 

Madge,  as  she  sees  me  toiling  over  my 
chintz  curtains,  and  sees  the  bothersome 
things  come  down  to  my  undoing,  wants 
to  know  why  I  wished  to  come,  quite  by 
myself;  why  I  didn't  take  lodgings  some 
where,  —  it  would  be  far  less  trouble.  She 
doesn't  understand  in  the  least  when  I  tell 
her  that  I  cannot  endure  the  irrelevance 
of  lodgings,  the  antimacassars,  the  hide 
ous  bric-a-brac,  the  rooms  packed  full  of 
horrors,  where  I  cannot  collect  my  mind. 
A  home  of  your  own  is  worth  while,  if 
only  to  keep  it  bare  of  human  clutter; 
bad  pictures  intimidate  me;  ugly  uphol 
stery  defeats  my  soul.  Of  provincial  Eng 
land  I  could  say,  if  it  weren't  profane, 
44 


TIIK    WORN    DOORSTEP 

all  thy  tidies  and  thy  ugly  reps  have  gone 
over  me.  The  publicity  of  hotel  or  board 
ing  house  I  cannot  endure,  nor  the  kind 
of  tissue-paper  life  that  one  must  live 
there.  Not  among  gilt  cornices  but  beside 
meadows  and  running  waters  I  choose  my 
lot.  Your  relatives  are  kindness  itself  in 
inviting  me  to  stay  with  them,  but  just 
now  I  cannot  bear  kindness;  I  want  peo 
ple  to  be  as  cruel  as  God!  Was  I  not 
lonely  enough,  after  my  own  family  had 
vanished  into  the  silence;  why  did  you 
come  into  my  life  only  to  leave  me  more 
alone? 

This  is  my  apologia  pro  domicilio  vieo, 
but  why,  after  all,  should  I  need  to  ex 
plain  a  longing  for  my  own  rooftree,  my 
own  hearth,  my  own  pathway  leading  to 
my  own  front  door?  I  must  have  come 
into  the  world  with  a  belief  that  for  every 
woman  born  was  intended  a  little  nook  or 
corner  or  cranny  of  her  own.  So  here  is 
mini-,  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  village, 
45 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

not  many  miles  from  the  sea,  seventy  odd 
miles  from  London,  and  how  far  from  that 
heaven  where  you  are?  Can  you  tell  me 
the  way  and  the  length  of  the  road? 
Sometimes  it  seems  set  on  the  very  edge 
of  eternity,  and  I  keep  expecting  to  see 
stray  cherubim,  seraphim,  and  angels  stop 
to  ask  the  rest  of  the  \vay. 

I  haven't  begun  on  the  garden;  in  a 
way  I  haven't  let  myself  see  it,  there  has 
been  so  much  to  do  in  the  house;  but,  if 
you  will  believe  it,  and  of  course  you  will, 
being  an  Englishman,  a  plum  tree  and  a 
pear  tree  are  espaliered  on  the  sunny 
southern  wall  of  the  house,  branching  out 
a  bit  over  one  of  the  windows.  There  are 
two  apple  trees,  a  clump  of  holly,  ferns 
in  a  corner,  rosebushes,  and  climbing  roses. 
I  shall  not  know  all  the  colours  until  next 
summer,  though  some  of  them  bloom  late ; 
I  have  discovered  wiiite  ones,  and  pale 
yellow,  and  one  of  a  deep  and  lovely  red. 
The  garden  is  neglected,  weedy,  and  grass- 
46 


THK    \VOHX     DOOHSTKT 

grown,  hut  I  find  hollyhocks,  foxglove, 
larkspur,  and  a  forgotten  violet  bed.  A 
small  kitchen  garden  borders  my  lady's 
garden,  and  Peter  shall  till  this.  Don 
walks  up  and  down  the  paths  with  a  step 
so  exactly  fitted  to  your  old  pace  in  the 
college  gardens  that  I  feel  always  a  little 
shock  of  surprise  in  not  seeing  you,  as  of 
old,  just  ahead. 

Scraps  of  conversation  drift  to  me  from 
Madge  and  Peter  when  they  happen  to 
work  together;  upon  the  invincibility  of 
the  British  they  agree,  and  upon  the  fact 
that  no  foe  will  ever  dare  set  foot  upon 
the  British  isles,  but  in  matters  of  social 
opinion  they  are  hopelessly  at  variance. 
Madge  is  a  conservative,  standing 
staunchly  by  the  C'hurch,  the  'All,  the 
'Ouse  of  Lords ;  Peter  is  an  extreme  rad 
ical,  a  "hatheist",  as  he  solemnly  in 
formed  me,  eager  for  anything  IH-W  in 
\\ord  or  thought,  and  usually  misappro 
priating  both.  He  reads  American  paper- 
47 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

covered  novels,  and  a  touch  of  transatlan 
tic  slang  creeps  now  and  then  into  his  con 
versation,  or  a  queer  abstract  phrase  from 
some  socialist  lecturer  whom  he  doesn't 
understand  but  accepts  entire.  Many  a 
bit  of  stubborn  debate  comes  to  me 
through  open  door  or  window,  as  Peter 
defends  his  rights  as  man  and  scoffs  at  the 
social  system. 

"  Wy  'im  at  the  'All?  Wy  not  me?  " 
was  the  last  I  heard. 

"You!"      said      Madge      scornfully. 

'  You   couldn't    even   stand   up   on   the 

floors,  they  are  that  shiny  and  polished." 

With  the  fragrance  of  ripening  fruit, 
and  the  warmth  of  the  brick  wall  about 
me,  —  September  is  September  every 
where,  —  I  sit  here  upon  my  own  thresh 
old,  a  worn  old  threshold  made  wrise  by 
the  coming  and  going  of  life  through  un 
numbered  years.  There  is  something  com 
forting  about  a  place  where  many  lives 
have  been  lived;  the  windows  have  a 
48 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

strange  air  <>f  wisdom,  as  if  experience 
itself  were  looking  out.  I  am  tired,  phys 
ically  tired,  with  all  the  work,  but  I  am 
well  content  with  it:  are  you?  All  within 
is  nearly  finished.  Your  books,  for  your 
mother  gave  me  many  of  them,  are  in  a 
set  of  shelves  I  had  made  by  the  fireplace ; 
my  own  in  a  low  case  that  runs  all  across 
one  side  of  the  room.  The  window  seats 
have  chintz  cushions;  two  easy  chairs  flank 
the  fireplace;  the  old  walnut  table  with 
reading  lamp  is  placed  where  it  can  com 
ma  i id  cither  the  flame  of  the  hearth  or  the 
sunset  flame:  do  you  like  all  this,  I 
wonder?  In  the  little  dining  room  a 
stately  armchair  stands  ready  for  you 
always,  as  befits  the  master  of  the  house, 
and  your  place  at  table  shall  be  always 
set,  the  cover  laid.  So  begins  our  divine 
housekeeping,  you  on  your  side,  I  on  mine 
-alas!  —  of  the  universe  and  life  and 
time. 

Last  night  I  laid  a  scarf  of  yours,  which 
49 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

I  had  been  wearing,  across  your  chair; 
Don  sniffed  at  it  and  whimpered,  then 
jumped  up  into  the  chair  and  whined  pite- 
ously.  No,  do  not  be  afraid!  I  shall  not 
whine,  even  if  my  heart  break.  I  shall 
come  to  you  smiling,  beloved,  and  what 
ever  wrinkles  are  on  my  face  shall  not  be 
worn  by  tears.  Everybody  is  game  in 
England  now;  I  will  be  game  too !  There 
are  no  cowards  among  those  who  go  to 
fight,  or  those  who  are  left  at  home:  my 
battlefield  lies  here.  You  need  not  think 
I  am  going  to  mourn  in  loneliness ;  I  shall 
not  let  you  go,  though  you  are  dead;  I 
am  going  to  live  my  life  in  and  for  you, 
and  every  least  wish  I  ever  heard  you  ex 
press  shall  be  carried  out.  After  dinner 
Don  and  I  sat  on  the  rug  in  front  of  the 
fire  and  talked  about  you ;  it  is  sorry  com 
fort  for  both  of  us,  but  it  is  all  we  have. 
For  him,  as  for  me,  I  think,  the  sense  of 
you  comes  more  strongly  in  favoured 
nooks  and  corners,  by  the  fire  on  the 
50 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

hearth,  or  by  the  living  room  windows  in 
the  sunshine.  He  knows  you  better  than 
anybody  else  does,  except  me,  and  I  some 
times  feel,  —  at  least,  he  remembers 
farther  back  than  I  can,  and  I  am  envious 
of  him  and  of  every  one  else  who  knew 
you  first.  He  has  chosen  his  permanent 
abiding-place,  for  he  went  close  to  the 
right  side  of  the  hearth,  sat  down,  wagged 
his  tail  beseechingly,  and  held  up  one  paw 
as  he  does  when  he  is  begging  for  things. 

So  I  have  closed  my  little  iron  gate,  - 
Madge,  Peter,  Don,  and  I  inside,  and  all 
the  world  shut  outside.  Perhaps  I  am 
moved  by  the  instinct  of  the  hurt  animal 
to  go  away  by  itself  and  hide.  It  cannot 
be  wrong  —  now;  henceforth  I  must  live 
in  the  past;  the  dropping  of  the  latch  will 
be  the  signal,  and  the  old  days  will  slip 
back  one  by  one  over  the  brick  wall.  I 
shall  establish  a  blockade;  haven't  I  a 
right?  The  pain,  at  times,  is  more  than  1 
can  bear,  and  every  face  I  see  recalls  the 
51 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

sight  of  happy  people,  the  sight  of 
wretched  people  alike.  Safe,  with  my 
sorrow,  inside  these  walls;  and  outside, 
the  surge  of  great  sorrows,  anguish,  per 
plexity. 

October  8.  Of  course  I  take  long  walks 
day  by  day,  yet  nothing  more  intensifies 
my  sense  of  loss,  perhaps,  because  we 
walked  so  much  together.  The  country 
is  as  green  as  it  was  that  July  day  when 
we  stopped  and  helped  the  haymakers  in 
the  Oxford  meadows,  and  they  jeered 
good-naturedly  at  our  way  of  raking.  I 
have  found  relief  in  watching  the  harvest 
ing  and  the  gathering  of  the  fruit ;  look 
ing  resolutely  at  field  and  stream,  center 
ing  mind  and  soul  there,  my  grief  softens 
and  grows  more  kind.  Everywhere  I  see 
the  picturesque  and  finished  charm  of 
English  life. 

As  I  climb  the  hill  past  the  church,  the 
old,  old  woman  who  lives  in  the  little 
52 


THi:    \VOHX    DOOHSTKP 

house  by  the  lych  gate,  —  the  churchyard 
gate,  the  gate  of  the  dead,  —  and  sells 
<>ingerbread,  biscuit,  and  ginger  ale,  is 
putting  out  her  wares.  She  is  so  old,  so 
much  a  part  of  the  other  world,  she  lives 
so  near  the  edge  of  this,  that  I  half  sus 
pect  her,  as  I  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  green 
mounds  through  the  rusted  wrought-iron 
bars,  of  ministering  to  those  we  cannot 
see.  None  but  the  English  would  think 
of  selling  gingerbread  at  heaven's  gate! 
Over  the  soft  gurgle  of  ale  from  the  stone 
jars  we  exchange  greetings;  she  is  only 
another  of  your  daring  and  delightful  in 
congruities,  seen  in  the  gargoyles  on  your 
cathedrals,  the  jokes  in  your  tragedies, 
and  the  licensed  mischief  of  your  Oxford 
students  on  Commemoration  Day. 

The  practical  necessities  of  life  take  me, 
perforce,  beyond  my  own  domain.  I  have 
made  the  acquaintance  of  butcher  and 
baker;  that  of  the  candlestick  maker  is 
still  to  come.  The  passing  faces  of  people 
53 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

in  the  village  street,  even  of  farmers  stop 
ping  at  the  Inn,  I  begin  to  recognize ;  the 
latter  look  little  more  concerned  about  the 
present  crisis  than  do  their  stout  nags. 
Life  goes  quietly  on  here,  as  it  has  always 
done,  I  fancy;  steps  are  scrubbed,  and 
brasses  of  knocker  and  door  latch  are  pol 
ished  until  you  can  see  your  face  there. 
Is  this  encompassing  calm  mere  apathy, 
or  is  it  conscious  strength?  In  his  little 
shop  the  sleepy  chemist  wakens  unwill 
ingly  to  deal  out  his  wares;  the  sleepy 
service  goes  on  as  of  old  in  the  little  church. 
It  is  grey  with  dust;  perhaps  the  care 
taker  does  not  think  it  worth  while  to  dust 
in  war-time,  yet  I  doubt  whether  he  knows 
there  is  war.  In  the  bakeshop  window 
day  by  day  are  displayed  the  great  clumsy 
loaves  of  bread  with  the  foolish  little  loaf 
tucked  on  at  one  side.  Why?  There's 
neither  rhyme  nor  reason  nor  symmetry 
in  it ;  the  force  of  custom  may  be  wise  and 
may  be  merely  stupid.  Here  one  gets 
54 


TIIK    \VOKX    DOORSTEP 

constantly  an  impression  of  the  over 
whelming  power  of  old  habit  and  has  a 
feeling  that  unless  these  people  are 
shocked  out  of  some  of  their  ancient  ways, 
disaster  will  follow.  As  I  collect  my 
wares,  I  fall  to  wondering  whether  either 
this  nation,  which  worships  its  past,  or  wr. 
who  worship  our  future,  is  wholly  right. 

If,  at  times,  a  doubt  intrudes  in  regard 
to  this  British  clinging  to  the  past,  it  is 
when  the  door  of  the  one  village  shop 
tinkles  at  my  entrance,  and  I  ask  in  vain 
for  the  common  necessities  which  it  is  sup 
posed  to  supply.  Here  are  pictures  of 
Queen  Victoria  and  all  the  royal  family, 
but  no  tapes,  no  trustworthy  thread,  no 
pins,  at  least  no  pins  with  points.  I 
brought  home  a  paper  of  these  soft  little 
British  crowbars,  but  alas!  fingers  cannot 
drive  them  in;  they  but  crumple  if,  in 
desperation,  you  urge  them  too  vigor 
ously.  How  can  a  nation  rule  the  sea; 
above  all,  how  can  it  conquer  in  a  mechan- 
55 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

ical  war  when  it  cannot  even  make  decent 
pins? 

My  mood  softens  as  I  stroll  toward 
home;  the  glow  of  the  blacksmith's  forge 
fascinates  me;  there  at  least  is  tremen 
dous  strength,  which  is  also  skill,  welding 
in  this  most  ancient  art,  blow  upon  blow, 
old-fashioned  horseshoes,  which  I  am  told 
are  the  best.  Past  quaint  old  doorways 
my  path  leads ;  the  sight  of  these,  and  of 
fine  old-fashioned  faces  behind  the  win- 
dowpanes,  revives  my  normal  mood  of 
affection.  What  other  people  would,  in 
reverence  to  wishes  of  those  long  dead, 
give  out  the  dole  of  widows'  bread  at 
Westminster,  the  daily  dole  at  Winches 
ter,  or  administer  the  Leicester  charity  at 
Warwick  in  the  spirit  in  which  it  was 
meant?  What  other  people  would  be 
honest  enough  to  do  it?  There  is  a  basic 
honesty  here  which  recalls  the  old  tale  of 
Lincoln  and  the  money  he  saved  for  many 
years,  in  order  to  give  back  the  identical 
56 


THE    WOKX    DOORSTEP 

coins  with  which  lie  liad  been  entrusted. 

As  I  enter  my  own  domain,  I  observe 
once  more  that  my  gate  does  not  latch 
properly;  all  this  time,  when  I  have 
found  it  left  open,  I  have  reproached 
Peter. 

"  Peter,  you  did  not  shut  the  gate." 

"  No,  Miss,"  rubbing  his  forehead  with 
the  back  of  his  hand. 

1  You  must  be  more  careful." 

'  Yes,  Miss." 

This  has  happened  several  times;  to 
day  I  found  that  no  power  could  make  it 
really  latch,  and  I  confided  the  fact  to 
Peter. 

*  Yes,  Miss,  I  knew  it  all  along,  Miss." 

"But  why--"  there  I  stopped;  I 
should  rather  never  know  why  than  to  try 
to  penetrate  the  wooden  impenetrability 
of  mind  of  the  British  serving-man. 
There  are  no  "  whys  "  in  their  vocabula 
ries,  no  "  whys "  in  their  minds,  only 
"thus  and  so."  Things  are  as  they  are; 
57 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

it  has  always  been  so;  theirs  to  stand 
under  the  atlas  weight  of  caste  and  class, 
prejudice  and  custom,  not  theirs  to  reason 
why,  when  they  are  blamed  by  their  mas 
ters  for  things  not  their  fault;  theirs  to 
go  on  digging,  very  respectfully  digging. 

"  Peter,  will  you  get  some  one  to  fix  it, 
please?" 

"  Fix  it,  Miss?  "  He  does  not  under 
stand  Americanese  unless  he  chooses. 

"  Put  it  in  order."  I  am  quite  red  and 
haughty  now,  and  as  dignified  as  Queen 
Alexandra. 

"  I'll  try,  Miss.  I  expect  that  was 
broken  a  long  time  ago."  Peter  half  sa 
lutes  and  goes  on  spading  the  earth  for 
next  year's  flowers. 

"  Peter,"  I  say  severely,  "  the  most  la 
mentable  thing  about  you  English  is  that 
you  are  always  '  expecting '  things  that 
have  already  happened.  It's  both  gram 
matically  and  politically  wrong  to  expect 
things  in  the  past."  He  has  not  the  slight- 
58 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

est  idea  of  my  meaning,  but  of  course  he 

assents. 

"  You    were    a    soldier   once,    weren't 

you?" 

"  Yes,  Miss.    It's  a  nasty  business." 
"  Slavery,"     I     venture,     "  would     be 


worse." 


"  I  can't  say,  really,"  answers  Peter. 

"  Sometimes  I  wonder  that  you  do  not 
volunteer  for  this  war,  Peter,"  I  suggest. 

Stolid  Peter  goes  on  digging. 

"  There  h'isn't  any  war,  Miss!  " 

"  But  Peter,  what  do  you  mean?  " 

A  fine  look  of  cunning  incredulity  over 
spreads  Peter's  broad  face,  as  he  stops 
and  wipes  his  forehead,  for  this  October 
day  is  warm. 

"  No,  Miss;  it  is  just  a  scare  got  up  by 
the  'Ouse  of  Lords  to  frighting  the  com 
mon  people." 

*  What  for?"  1  ask  stupidly. 

"  To  take  their  minds  off  the  'Ouse  of 
Lords;  we  had  threatened  their  power, 
59 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

'm,  and  they  wish  to  keep  their  seats.  It 
is  what  you  call  a  roose." 

"  Peter,"  I  say  severely,  "  day  by  day 
we  hear  through  the  newspapers  of  terri 
ble  fighting  going  on  all  the  time;  how 
can  you  say  such  a  foolish  thing? " 

1  The  newspapers,  'm,"  said  Peter,  with 
frightful  audacity,  "  are  corrupted, 
bought  by  the  'Ouse  of  Lords.  They 
say  what  they  are  bordered  to.'* 

'  The  poor  Belgians  are  pouring  into 
this  country,"  I  say  in  wrath. 

"  Beg  parding,  Miss,  but  I  haven't  seen 
a  Belgian,"  answers  doubting  Peter. 

"  Day  by  day  we  hear  of  recruits  going 
by  hundreds  to  the  recruiting  stations  - 

;'  I'm  not  denying  that  they  may  be 
making  up  the  army,  'm,  and  that  there 
may  be  war  some  day;  but  that  a  war  is 
on,  I  deny,  'm." 

So  this  is  what  happens  when  the  Brit 
ish  lower  classes  begin  to  think!  There 
really  ought  to  be  some  better  way  of 
60 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

bridging  the  gulf  between  their  old,  auto 
matic  habits  and  the  new  working  of  their 
minds. 

"  They  are  carrying  soldiers  across  the 
Channel  by  thousands,"  I  say  indignantly. 

"All  bunkum,  if  you'll  kindly  excuse 
the  word,  Miss.  Did  Robinson  Crusoe 
really  happen?  We  'ear  of  these  things 
going  on,  but  do  you  know  of  anybody 
who  has  actually  been  killed,  'm?"  asks 
Peter. 

I  looked  at  him,  but  I  could  not  speak. 
Where  are  you  lying,  dear,  in  that  awful 
field  of  death? 

October  11.  I  was  pruning  and  tying 
up  rose  vines,  by  my  \\Tought-iron  gate 
that  stands  ajar,  when  I  heard  a  noise,  - 
first,  a  skurrying  of  feet,  and  a  shout,  then 
a  rush  of  something  small  and  swift.  The 
tiniest  grey  kitten  imaginable  had  dashed 
in  through  the  opening  and  was  trembling 
in  a  corner  under  my  rosebush.  I  picked 
61 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

it  up  and  went  quickly  to  the  gate ;  there 
was  a  red-faced  urchin  waiting,  his  mouth 
open,  a  stone  in  one  hand  ready  to  throw 
at  the  kitten  if  it  came  out,  but  shy  of  en 
tering, —  the  British  respect  for  a  gate! 
Neither  my  pleas  nor  my  scolding  brought 
a  shade  of  expression  to  his  face;  it  was 
as  guileless,  as  soulless,  as  a  jack-o'- 
lantern.  I  give  the  boy  tuppence,  and 
tell  him  to  go  away,  and  to  be  kind  to 
animals;  the  kitten  curls  itself  about  my 
neck  and  purrs,  as  I  work  in  the  earth. 
Of  course  I  shall  keep  it;  I  am  glad  that 
the  latch  will  not  hold,  and  I  shall  not 
even  try  to  have  it  repaired.  Perhaps  my 
garden  may  serve  as  a  refuge  for  small 
hunted  things,  suffering  things.  I  might 
have  a  ring  put  on  my  gate;  you  remem 
ber  the  ring  upon  the  cathedral  door  at 
Durham  to  which  a  fugitive  could  cling? 
All  the  village  criminals  —  I  wonder  who 
the  village  criminals  are?  Probably  the 
ones  who  look  least  so!  —  could  cling  to 
62 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

it,  and  Peter  could  rescue  them,  and 
Madge  and  1  could  give  them  tea. 

And  now  to  help  on  the  millennium  a 
hit  by  establishing  an  intimacy  between  the 
refun-ee  kitten  and  snobbish  little  Don.  In 
his  heart  I  think  he  wants  to  make  friends; 
but  when  a  common  kitten,  with  no  pedi 
gree  and  no  Oxford  training,  spits  at 
him,  what  is  he  to  do?  He  looks  piteously 
at  me  as  I  bid  him  be  gentle ;  sniffs  in  half 
friendly  fashion,  and  keeps  his  delicate 
nose  well  away  from  the  claws.  Mean 
while,  how  can  I  teach  the  kitten  noblesse 
oblige?  I  shall  name  it  the  Atom,  be 
cause,  it  being  (so  much  of  the  time)  in 
visible,  like  the  scientists  I  am  unable  to 
tell  whether  or  not  it  exists;  and  because 
at  moments  it  seems  only  a  "mode  of 
motion." 

Not  long  after  came  a  little  squeal,  as 

of  a  tiny  pi.ir.    my  flower  beds!     I  hurry 

down;   the  gate  is  farther  OJICM.  and  there 

is  a  huge  baby,  a  gingerbread  baby,  —  no, 

<>:* 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

it  is  alive,  but  it  has  the  shape  of  ginger 
bread  babies  in  the  shops,  and  it  has  the 
motions  of  a  gingerbread  baby,  —  not  a 
joint  in  its  body;  "  moving  all  together  if 
it  move  at  all."  Its  round  blue  eyes,  its 
round  red  mouth  look  frightened  in  Don's 
presence  and  mine;  then,  with  another 
little  squeal,  it  flings  itself  upon  Don, 
who  draws  away,  looks  at  me  inquiringly, 
with  that  questioning  paw  uplifted,  shiv 
ering  a  little,  all  his  class-consciousness 
astir:  must  he  make  friends  with  this? 

It  is  a  solid  British  lump,  but  friendly 
beyond  belief.  In  feeling  that  it  would 
further  the  entente  cordiale  between  the 
two  peoples,  I  find  myself  making  a  play 
house,  with  tiny  pebbles.  The  infant 
Briton  is  not  so  phlegmatic,  after  all;  it 
shouts  with  delight,  flings  itself  upon  my 
knees,  and  embraces  them  so  suddenly  and 
so  lustily  that  I  nearly  fall  over.  ...  I 
must  find  out  its  name  and  send  to  Lon 
don  for  a  Teddy  bear  and  some  toys.  My 
64 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

gate  is  wide  open,  ever  since  Peter  started 
to  escort  home  my  uninvited  guest.  .  .  . 

It  proves  quite  a  day  for  adventure,  and 
yet  I  have  not  been  beyond  my  garden 
wall.  As  I  sit  on  my  threshold  to  watch 
the  sunset,  I  see,  pausing  at  that  open 
gate,  a  tired-looking  woman,  with  her 
baby  in  her  arms.  She  starts  to  move 
away,  but  I  speak  to  her,  and  she  enters; 
at  first  glance  I  know  that  she  is  neither 
tramp  nor  beggar  and  half  divine  her  er 
rand.  Yes,  she  is  a  soldier's  wife;  he  is 
going  in  a  few  days  to  the  front,  and  she 
is  walking  a  good  part  of  the  way  from 
the  north  of  England  to  his  training 
camp  at  Salisbury  Plain,  to  let  him  see 
and  say  good-bye  to  the  baby  on  whom  he 
has  never  set  his  eyes;  it  is  only  seven 
\\ccks  old  and  was  born  after  he  volun 
teered.  She  had  money  enough  to  come 
only  a  certain  distance  by  train. 

The  mother  is  a  north-country  woman, 
with  a  touch  of  Scotch  about  her,  rkan 
65 


THE    WORN   DOORSTEP 

and  sweet,  though  a  bit  dusty  with  the 
long  road.  Of  course  I  take  her  in  for 
the  night;  we  have  a  wee  guest-chamber. 
Don  and  the  kitten  and  I  try  to  make 
friends  with  the  baby,  but  it  merely 
howls.  Madge  wanted  to  keep  the  trav 
ellers  in  the  kitchen,  but  I  would  not  per 
mit  this  and  said  that  my  soldier's  wife 
must  dine  with  me.  I  forgot  to  say,  I  took 
it  for  granted  that  Madge  would  know 
enough  to  lay  another  cover  at  table  and 
was  not  prepared  to  see  the  stranger  in 
your  place.  Naturally,  though  I  winced, 
I  could  not  make  any  change,  and  there 
she  sat,  a  bit  awed;  probably  she  would 
have  been  happier  in  the  kitchen  with  the 
baby;  but  she  brightened  up  and  told 
me  some  of  the  border  legends,  when 
she  found  that  I  already  knew  some. 
My  desire  to  take  her  out  of  your  chair 
lasted  through  the  soup  and  half-way 
through  the  modest  roast;  when  we 
reached  the  salad,  there  was  a  hurt  sense 
66 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

somewhere  within  me  that  it  was  right. 
I  had  become  a  Christian  by  the  time  the 
dessert  came  on,  and  in  the  afterglow  by 
the  fire,  while  she  sang  her  baby  to  sleep 
most  enchantingly  with  an  old  north- 
country  song,  I  resolved  to  do  just  this: 
keep  your  chair  for  wandering  guests, 
fugitives  from  these  highways  and 
hedges.  Your  intense  present  life  with 
me,  your  subtle  nearness  needs,  after  all, 
no  help  from  outer  object  or  material 
thing.  Alas  for  my  blockade!  .  .  .  Forts 
are  proving  useless,  the  war  news  says. 

It  sets  me  to  thinking,  and  I  sit  by  the 
fire  long  after  my  guests  have  gone  to 
sleep.  After  all,  it  seems  a  pity  to  work 
so  hard  over  a  house  and  to  get  it  ready, 
unless  you  get  it  ready  for  something.  I 
don't  know  how  it  could  be  managed  in 
a  maiden  lady's  home,  but  what  if  I  re 
solved  that  all  the  things  that  should 
happen  in  a  house  should  happen  here? 
In  my  heart  of  hearts  I  know,  in  spite  of 
57 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

this  blinding  sorrow,  that  I  do  not  want 
to  be  shut  off  from  the  main  streams  of 
human  life.  They  used  to  tell  me  that  I 
have  a  genius  for  home;  suppose  I  es 
tablish  this  as  a  \vee  home  in  a  warring 
universe  for  the  use  of  whomsoever? 
Not  a  Home  with  a  large  H,  but  a  little 
home,  with  a  dog  and  a  cat  and  a  singing 
teakettle.  The  Lord  did  not  make  me 
for  great  causes,  —  not  for  a  philanthro 
pist,  nor  a  leader  of  men,  nor  a  suffra 
gette.  I  have  no  understanding  of  masses 
of  mankind,  and  so  am  lost  in  this  era, 
and  hopelessly  behind  the  times.  Life 
seems  to  me,  as  it  did  to  my  grandfather, 
primarily  as  the  conscientious  fulfilment 
of  individual  obligation,  which  inevitably 
reaches  out  to  other  lives.  The  troubles 
of  individual  men  and  women  and  chil 
dren  I  used  to  understand,  to  try  to  help ; 
perhaps  I  can  again.  Though  it  means 
confessing  that  I  belong  to  a  type  of 
woman  rapidly  becoming  extinct,  all  my 
68 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

life  long  I  have  felt  that  I  should  be  con 
tent  with  a  hearthstone  and  threshold  of 
my  own,  with  natural  relationships  and 
real  neighbours.  If  I  can  understand  and 
pity  and  try  to  help,  why  am  I  not  doing 
it  now,  pig  that  I  am?  Birth,  and  death, 
and  marriage,  and  hours  of  common  life! 
Ah,  if  the  little  red  house  could  only  lend 
itself  once  more  to  all  human  need! 

October  15.  My  Jeannie  Deans  is 
gone ;  she  was  in  such  haste  that  she  could 
hardly  wait  for  her  breakfast.  I  got 
mine  host  to  drive  her  to  the  station,  for 
I  shall  not  let  her  walk  the  rest  of  the  way, 
and  I  gave  her  all  the  money  I  could  find 
in  the  house,  including  all  I  could  extract 
from  Madge's  and  Peter's  pockets,  and 
from  Madge's  broken  teapot.  Unfortu 
nately,  it  was  not  so  much  as  I  could 
have  wished,  but  it  \\ill  provide  for  a  few 
days.  \ow  we  haven't  ha'pence  in  the 
house ;  so  much  the  better,  if  the  burglar 
69 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

with  whom  I  am  threatened  by  the  boding 
village  gossips  should  call;  but  I  must 
drive  over  to  Shepperton,  the  market 
town,  and  call  at  the  Outland  and  County 
Bank,  and  get  some  of  those  clean,  crisp, 
dainty  notes  that  are  a  delight  to  touch. 

It  seems  lonely  without  Jeannie ;  Peter 
has  gone  away  over  hill  and  dale  to  get 
fertilizer  for  my  garden;  my  house  is 
empty,  swept,  and  garnished  -  - 1  have 
been  dreading  the  moment  when  every 
thing  would  be  done.  I  carry  on  Madge's 
education,  for  I  am  trying  to  teach  her 
English  history.  Yesterday  it  was  Will 
iam  the  Conqueror;  she  did  not  believe  a 
word  of  it,  but  she  very  politely  said: 
"Just  fancy!"  Most  of  these  people 
know  so  little  of  their  own  history  that 
they  scorn  the  idea  that  anything  unfor 
tunate  ever  happened  to  England  and 
scoff  at  a  statement  that  she  has  ever  been 
worsted  in  a  fight.  It  has  always  been 
as  it  is,  the  King  on  the  throne,  the  Vicar 
70 


TIIK    \VORX     DOOKSTKP 

in  the  pulpit,  the  Squire  at  the  Hall,  and 
the  island  secure  from  all  attack.  To 
butcher  and  baker  and  candlestick  maker 
in  the  village,  danger  or  threatened 
change  is  inconceivable;  England's  past 
defeats  sound  to  them  like  fairy  stories 
devised  by  enemies,  though  they  lend  a 
willing  ear  to  the  tale  of  England's  tri 
umphs.  Going  back  to  ancient  times,  I 
told  Madge  about  the  Danes  and  their 
landing  on  this  coast,  about  the  burning 
and  pillaging  done  by  these  wild  folk:  all 
that  she  remarked  was:  "  How  awk 
ward!  "  I  could  not  get  her  to  entertain 
for  a  moment  the  idea,  though  we  are 
only  a  few  miles  from  the  North  Sea, 
that  the  enemy  could  ever  land  on  Eng 
lish  shores.  ;c  Ilengland  rules  the  seas," 
and  that  is  all  there  is  to  it.  Antwerp  has 
fallen,  but  even  this  does  not  shake  the 
prevailing  sense  of  security.  Antwerp  is 
not  England! 

In    contemporary    matters    Madge    is 
71 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

quite  interested ;  she  thinks  great  scorn  of 
the  suffragettes:  "  Breaking  the  windows, 
'm,  and  biting  Mr.  Hasquith,  'm;  it's 
not  for  ladies  to  be  taking  part  in  public 
matters;  they  'aven't  it  in  them!  "  I  re 
minded  her  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  but  she 
had  never  heard  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  and 
refused  to  entertain  the  idea  that  any  such 
woman  had  ever  ruled  England.  Even 
the  tale  of  the  Virgin  Queen  boxing  the 
courtiers'  ears  she  disbelieved  with  the 
rest.  She  admitted  Queen  Victoria,  but 
said  that  it  was  "  so  different,  'm,  and  she 
a  mother  and  a  grandmother." 

Some  of  this  went  on  while  Madge  \yas 
doing  up  the  guest  room;  she  wanted 
simply  to  spread  the  coverlid  over  the  bed, 
as  it  probably  would  not  be  used  again 
for  a  long  time.  I  insisted,  however,  that 
the  bed  be  made  ready  with  fresh  sheets; 
some  one  might  stop  at  any  minute,  I  ex 
plained.  Madge  looked  at  me  with  ques 
tion  in  her  eye;  her  impression  of  me  up 
72 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

to  this  point  is  that  I  am  an  amiable  luna 
tic  who  may  at  any  minute  change  to  vio 
lence. 

After  luncheon  I  made  Peter  go  and 
get  the  pony  for  me ;  yes,  the  pony  is  now 
exclusively  my  own,  for  as  long  a  time  as 
I  wish.  He  is  almost  the  most  interesting 
personality  I  have  ever  known,  —  wilful, 
conscientious,  full  of  conviction  in  regard 
to  what  he  considers  his  duty  and  what  he 
looks  upon  as  his  privileges.  There  are 
spurts,  attended  by  dashing  heels  and 
swishing  tail,  of  strict  and  spirited  per 
formance  of  his  alloted  tasks;  there  is 
peasant  stubbornness,  attended  by  stiff 
ened  legs  and  tenacious  hoofs,  of  resistance 
to  evil.  He  is  British,  or  Scotch,  to  the 
core.  Evidently  he  feels  that  his  ancestors 
had  a  hand,  a  hoof,  I  mean,  in  the  Magna 
Charta,  and  all  the  liberty  that  is  coming 
to  him  he  means  to  have,  and  all  the  obli 
gations  resting  upon  him  he  means  to  fufil, 
in  his  own  way,  at  his  own  time.  Some- 
73 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

times  he  will  do  far  more  than  he  is  asked, 
scornful  of  other  people's  ideas;  has  he 
not  his  own?  He  is  full  of  punctiliousness, 
decency,  order,  when  he  feels  like  it;  of 
utmost  freedom,  even  license  also,  when 
he  feels  like  it.  Now  and  then  he  runs 
away,  purely,  I  think,  on  the  principle  of: 
"  British  ponies  never  shall  be  slaves." 
Gentle  when  you  would  least  expect  it, 
fractious  when  you  are  most  unprepared, 
he  looks  upon  whizzing  motor  cars  with 
calm  tolerance,  so  unlike  my  own  feeling 
that  I  may  well  cultivate  his  acquaintance 
in  order  to  learn  that  wise  indifference. 
It  is  as  if  he  were  disdainful  of  anything 
the  modern  world  could  invent  to 
frighten  him  or  get  in  his  way ;  here  is  an 
ancient  British  self-possession,  a  sense  of 
ownership  in  the  soil.  His  ancestors  were 
here  hundreds  of  years  before  these  tri 
fling  modernisms  appeared;  William  the 
Conqueror  and  his  Norman  steeds  were 
but  parvenus  and  upstarts  to  them.  He 
74 


THK    \VOHX    DOORSTEP 

\vill  shy  at  a  floating  feather,  but  I  doubt 
if  lie  would  shy  at  a  Zeppelin.  Like  many 
another  staunch  character,  he  takes  gal 
lantly  the  real  troubles  of  life,  balking 
only  at  the  trifles. 

"  I  should  like  to  know,"  I  said  meekly, 
as  we  started,  "  whether  it  is  one  of  my 
days  for  obeying  you,  or  one  of  your  days 
for  obeying  me?  When  I  find  out,  I  shall 
conduct  myself  accordingly."  I  got  no 
answer,  yet  I  soon  discovered.  There  is 
really  something  uncanny  about  him;  he 
a  to  know  more  than  horse  or  human 
should  know;  to  have  foreknowledge  of 
events.  I  must  not  tell  his  master,  or  the 
charges  will  be  raised  from  five  shillings 
a  week  perhaps  to  eight;  after  all,  eight 
shillings  for  supernatural  wisdom  would 
not  he  unreasonable!  On  the  other  band, 
if  it  was  just  plain  British  contrariness, 
eight  shillings  would  be  too  much,  as 
is  such  an  over-supply  of  the  com 
modity. 

75 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

I  was  driving  out  in  the  forest  to  west 
ward,  and  it  is  very  beautiful  with  its 
great  oaks  and  birches,  and  its  loveli 
ness  of  yellowing  fern.  In  spite  of  the 
mellow  Octoberness  everywhere,  I  was 
thinking  sad  thoughts;  all  day  you  can 
drive  here  and  yet  hardly  cross  one  man's 
possessions;  much  of  the  land  lies  idle, 
while  people  starve  in  England ;  much  of 
it  is  preserved,  —  the  poor  tame  pheas 
ants  are  as  friendly  as  domestic  hens.  The 
tax  for  charity  here  is  one  shilling  four- 
pence  a  pound;  as  I  read  this,  I  thought 
of  London  with  its  starving  poor,  its  rib 
ald  poor,  and  I  wondered  if  this  great 
kingdom  will  vanish  because  the  people 
do  not  pull  together  better.  The  blind 
selfishness  of  the  upper  class  with  their 
glass-guarded  walls  is  a  greater  menace 
than  the  German  siege  guns. 

I  came  to  a  cross  road,  or  cross  path, 
grassy  paths  both,  with  creeping  green 
moss  among  the  roots  of  the  trees  on  either 
76 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

side.    It  was  hard  to  decide  which  way  to 
go;  I  chose  the  right  and  pulled  the  rein: 
Puck  chose  the  left  and  started.    I  tugged 
at  the  right  and  told  him  to  go  on;    he 
said  he  wouldn't;  again  I  told  him,  and 
he  shook  his  head,  shook  himself  all  over 
with  his  head  down,  until  his  harness  rat 
tled.     When  I  told  him  a  third  time,  he 
stamped,  kicked,  and  pulled  with  all  his 
might  to  the  left.     Of  course  he  got  his 
way;  some  people  passed;   I  was  not  go 
ing  to  be  convicted  of  inadequate  horse 
manship,  being  only  an  American,  so  I 
assumed   a   calm   and   masterful   British 
look,  as  if  that  were  the  way  I  had  all 
along  meant  to  go,  and  we  jogged  on. 
The  self-satisfaction   in  that  little  crea 
ture's  air!     He  turned  his  head  around 
now  and  then,  trying  to  see  how  I  was 
taking  it;    having  had  his  own  way,  he 
went  at  a  jolly   pace;    he  loves  to  start 
rabbits  and  make  the   pheasants  fly  up. 
Presently,  at  a  turn  in  the  road,  he  shied; 
77 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

he  did  it  quite  theatrically,  as  if  he  had 
worked  it  all  out  in  his  mind  and  had 
achieved  the  intended  effect.  He  ex 
pected  me  to  be  startled  and  to  rein  him 
in,  fighting  to  control  him,  but  I  did  noth 
ing  of  the  kind.  I  merely  let  the  reins  lie 
loose  and  watched  him;  he  subsided  very 
suddenly  and  dejectedly  at  having  lost 
his  fun. 

Then  I  saw  what  he  was  shying  at  and 
stopped  him;  I  think  that  he  had  known 
all  along  what  he  was  going  to  find! 
There,  under  a  great  oak  tree,  partly  hid 
den  by  tall  bracken,  lay  a  girl  with  her 
eyes  closed,  her  hat  partly  off  her  head, 
looking  like  one  who  was  very  tired  and 
had  fallen  in  her  tracks  to  go  to  sleep.  In 
a  minute  I  was  at  her  side,  holding  tightly 
to  the  reins,  for  fear  of  what  that  little 
wretch  might  do,  but  he  was  as  immovable 
as  Stonehenge. 

She  was  quite  young,  very  wan  and 
pale,  fairly  well  dressed  but  crumpled 
78 


TIIK    \VOKX 

looking.  Her  hair  was  dark,  and  her 
eyes,  when  she  slowly  opened  them, 
proved  to  be  dark  also. 

I  do  not  know  yet  whether  she  had 
fainted,  or  whether  she  was  asleep  from 
exhaustion ;  her  poor  feet  showed  that  she 
had  walked  many  miles,  for  the  soles  of 
her  shoes  were  worn  through.  At  sight 
of  me  she  sat  up,  looking  frightened,  but, 
evidently  finding  that  I  was  not  so  terri 
ble,  at  length  smiled  back,  —  a  faint  little 
smile.  I  knew  enough  to  be  silent  at  first; 
this  is  something  that  I  have  learned  from 
animals:  there  are  sympathies,  under 
standings,  that  antedate  words.  When  I 
asked  her  very  softly  if  she  were  ill,  she 
shook  her  head,  not  understanding.  I 
tried  French,  and,  though  my  French  is 
odd,  I  know,  she  brightened,  clasped  her 
hands  together,  giving  a  great  sigh,  and 
then  tears  began  to  roll  down  her  f- 
That  villain  of  a  pony  looked  around  now 
and  then  as  if  to  say:  "  ffV/o  was  right 
TO 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

about  the  road?    You  would  never  have 
found  her  if  I  had  not  had  my  way." 

If  he  had  been  commissioned  by  the 
government  to  help  in  giving  first  aid,  he 
could  not  have  acted  with  more  sense  of 
responsibility  than  he  did  in  helping  me 
take  her  home,  standing  motionless  while 
she  climbed  into  the  cart,  so  weak  with 
hunger,  she  confessed,  that  she  could 
hardly  move,  —  then  speeding  fast  where 
the  road  was  smooth,  and  going  very 
slowly  where  the  carters'  wheels  have  left 
deep  nits  in  the  mossy  soil.  He  really  has 
more  than  human  sense  at  times!  Don, 
of  his  own  accord,  leaped  in  beside  the 
fugitive;  at  times  I  think  that  his  spirit 
is  really  becoming  more  catholic,  and  that 
he  demands  less  in  the  way  of  credentials 
and  introductions  than  of  old.  The  girl's 
pluck  interested  me,  for,  though  she  could 
hardly  hold  herself  upright,  she  refused 
my  help.  Suddenly,  from  nowhere,  a 
phrase  flashed  into  my  mind,  "  L'lnde- 
80 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

pendence  Beige  ",  and  I  knew  —  what 
afterward  proved  to  be  true-  that  she  / 
was  one  of  the  many  Belgian  refugees  in 
England,  though  why  she  was  wandering 
about  by  herself  in  this  remote  corner  of 
England  I  did  not  know  until  afterward. 
As  we  jogged  on,  over  the  meadows  and 
through  the  village  street,  she  held  herself 
so  bravely  that  nobody  stared,  though  she 
was  white  to  the  lips.  She  even  managed 
to  walk  into  the  house,  but,  once  inside, 
sank  down  on  the  couch  and  fainted  quite 
away.  Madge  and  I  worked  over  her, 
giving  her  drops  of  warm  milk  with  a  wee 
hit  of  brandy,  taking  the  shoes  from  her 
poor  blistered  feet,  and  bathing  them. 
You  should  have  heard  Madge  when  I 
told  her  that  I  thought  the  girl  was  one 
<>!  the  fugitive  Belgians;  to  take  a  red- 
hot  poker  to  the  Kaiser  seemed  to  be  her 
lightest  wish  for  vengeance. 

When   our  guest    was  in   bed,  all    i'l 

and  clean,  with  her  hair  brushed  smoothly 

81 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

from  her  forehead,  I  could  see  that  she 
was  a  sweet  and  wholesome  maiden,  with 
a  comely,  housewifely  air,  and  my  heart 
ached  for  her  sufferings.  She  ate  a  little, 
then  lay  with  her  eyes  full  of  tears  that 
she  would  not  let  fall;  she  kept  winking 
her  long  lashes  to  keep  them  hack.  Don 
jumped  up  beside  her  and  snuggled  close; 
she  smiled,  lifted  her  hand  to  his  head  for 
a  minute,  then  she  went  to  sleep.  Such 
sleep  I  never  saw,  —  deep,  long,  dream 
less  ;  hour  by  hour  she  lay  there,  not  mov 
ing  all  night  long,  for  I  crept  in  now  and 
then:  I  could  not  sleep.  Don  kept  watch 
until  morning. 

She  did  not  waken  until  after  ten ;  there 
was  a  flush  in  her  cheeks,  and  her  eyes 
were  starry,  but  in  her  face,  young  as  she 
seemed,  was  a  foreshadowing  of  the  worn 
look  of  age  and  sorrow  that  the  years 
should  bring,  not  the  German  army !  She 
wore  an  air  of  wistful  questioning  to 
which  there  is  no  answer,  as  she  lay  twist- 
82 


TIIK    \V()K\    DOORSTEP 

ing  weakly  a  simple  ring  about  her  third 
finger. 

\Ve  had  a  funny  time  trying  to  talk; 
La  Fontaine's  fables  and  Racine's  Atlia- 
II c,  as  taugbt  in  a  young  ladies'  finishing 
school,  are  not  the  best  basis  for  a  conver 
sation  on  the  practical  needs  of  life.  I 
wanted  to  ask  her  if  she  liked  sugar  and 
cream  in  her  coffee;  all  I  could  think  of 
was 

"  C'etait  pendant  1'horn  ur  d'une  profonde  nuit, 
Ma  mere  Jezebel  devant  moi  s'est  montree." 

I  did  succeed  in  telling  her  that  this  was 
probably  not  as  good  as  Belgian  coffee; 
she  sipped  it  gratefully  and  nibbled  her 
toast,  putting  her  band  on  mine  and  say 
ing  that  it  was  "  delicious,  Mademoiselle, 
but  delicious.91 

My  fugitive  is  still  here;  she  was  in 
bed  two  days,  and  then  I  let  her  get  up. 
She  is  wearing  one  of  my  gowns,  and  she 
spends  much  of  her  time  in  the  garden  in 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

the  grapevine  arbour,  sitting  very  still, 
with  the  shadow  of  the  leaves  upon  her 
face.  Don  stays  with  her  much  of  the  time, 
and  she  seems  to  like  this ;  and  the  country 
smell  of  the  garden  comforts  her  a  little, 
I  think,  —  the  odour  of  the  red  apples  ri 
pening  in  the  sun  and  of  grapes  that  will 
not  quite  ripen.  She  rarely  moves,  except 
when  a  drifting  autumn  leaf  falls  on  lap 
or  shoulder;  it  is  as  if  body,  mind,  and 
soul  were  exhausted  by  the  awful  shock 
of  her  experience,  and  she  could  not 
gather  up  her  vital  forces.  I  can  only 
dumbly  wonder  what  terrors  she  has  gone 
through,  what  unspeakable  things  she  has 
seen. 

Her  name  is  Marie  Lepont;  father 
and  mother  she  has  not,  but  she  lived  with 
an  aunt  in  a  little  villa  near  Brussels,  - 
with  a  garden  like  this,  only  plus  grand, 
and  she  had  a  lover ;  oh,  yes,  for  two  years 
she  had  been  betrothed.  I  could  not  un 
derstand  all  that  she  said,  but  she  told  of 
84 


THE    \VORX    DOORSTEP 

their  awful  suspense  in  waiting  for  the 
Germans  and  of  their  taking  refuge  in  the 
cellar,  —  the  French  for  cellar  I  had 
never  learned,  so  she  showred  me  my  own. 
Then  came  the  flight,  of  old  men,  women, 
children,  and  pitiful  animals;  sickness, 
and  falling  by  the  way.  Her  aunt  died 
from  sheer  exhaustion  in  a  peasant's  hut 
and  was  hastily  buried  at  night.  She 
could  hardly  tell  what  had  happened, 
only  that  she  was  quite  lost  and  separated 
from  everybody  she  had  ever  known.  Her 
lover  was  not  in  Brussels  when  the  crisis 
came,  and  she  had  had  no  tidings  from 
him.  Evidently  she  had  been  swept  over 
in  a  great  wave  of  terrified  humanity  and 
had  found  herself  on  a  steamer  crowded 
with  refugees.  She  can  remember  very 
little  about  the  voyage,  but  with  many 
others  she  reached  a  receiving  camp  near 
London,  half  ill  and  quite  dazed.  She 
searched  vainly  for  her  lover,  and,  not  be 
ing  able  to  discover  any  trace  of  him, 
85 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

stole  away  from  the  camp  in  a  state  of 
mental  bewilderment  to  try  to  find  him. 
For  days  she  walked,  growing  more  and 
more  spent  and  hungry,  for  she  was  shy 
about  asking  for  food,  and  the  country 
people  did  not  understand  her,  evidently 
mistook  her  for  a  gypsy,  and  treated  her 
somewhat  churlishly.  When  she  reached 
the  forest  she  wras  happy,  it  was  so  cool 
and  shady  there,  but  she  had  little  to  eat 
save  mushrooms.  If  I  had  tried  to  pluck 
mushrooms  for  my  sustenance,  it  would 
have  ended  all  my  troubles!  When  I 
found  her,  she  had  had  nothing  to  eat  for 
more  than  twenty-four  hours. 

I  watch  her  as  she  sits  in  the  sunshine, 
and  I  multiply  her  by  hundreds  and 
thousands,  innocent  people,  old  folk  and 
babies,  old  men  and  women  lying  down 
by  the  roadside  to  die,  and  the  horror 
comes  like  a  great  tidal  wave,  sweeping 
all  things  before  it,  drowning  all  the  joy 
of  life  and  the  old  sweet  ways  of  living. 
86 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

It  breaks  on  the  brick  wall  of  my  garden 
and  is  driven  back:  I  will  not  be  over 
whelmed  by  any  anguisb  of  human  fate, 
my  own,  or  that  of  any  one  else.  Until 
SOUR-  wandering  star  strikes  the  earth  and 
shivers  it  to  atoms,  there  is  hope  some 
where,  and  there  are  things  to  do!  And 
Marie  Lepont  shall  not  be  overwhelmed 
cither,  in  spite  of  the  terrible  things  she 
sees,  waking  or  sleeping,  for  she  starts  up 
and  cries  out  in  the  night;  Don  gives  a 
little  comforting,  reassuring  bark,  and  she 
goes  to  sleep  again.  I've  got  to  find  her 
lover  for  her,  and  howr  shall  I  begin? 
I'll  go  and  ask  the  pony! 

October  14.  My  fugitive  fits  quietly 
into  our  life  in  the  little  red  house,  saying 
little,  trying  to  do  much,  and  smiling 
more  and  more.  I  do  not  talk  to  her,  but 
now  and  then  I  sit  and  sew  with  her;  I 
know  that  she  is  most  domestic,  and  that 
this  will  make  her  feel  at  home,  but  I 
87 


THE   WORN   DOORSTEP 

should  hate  to  have  her  examine  my  seams 
and  hems,  for  I  am  no  seamstress.  I  leave 
her  much  alone  with  the  animals,  and  that 
seems  to  help  more  than  anything  else ;  the 
Atom  spends  much  of  its  time  on  her 
shoulder.  She  has  begged  to  be  allowed 
to  feed  the  chickens,  for  Madge  has  in 
sisted  on  our  having  chickens,  and  Peter 
has  constructed  a  yard  for  them,  with  a 
little  house  for  winter,  a  bit  down  the 
stream.  Sea  gulls  come  sailing  on  wide 
beautiful  white  wings  and  descend  to  the 
chicken  yard,  walk  about  and  steal  food, 
to  the  helpless  wrath  of  our  fowls.  Even 
Hengist  and  Horsa  retreat ;  they  are  two 
twin  stately  cocks,  and  William  the  Con 
queror  is  a  bigger  one,  with  spurs.  He  is 
quite  the  greatest  coward  in  the  yard,  and 
entirely  in  awe  of  his  Matildas.  It  is  thus 
that  I  am  making  history  concrete  for 
Madge;  my  long  line  of  British  queens 
does  credit  to  the  dynasty,  though  they  are 
a  bit  miscellaneous  in  ancestry.  Boadicea 
88 


THK    \\OHX     DOOKSTKr 

is  a  dark  beauty,  wild  and  fierce;  my  vain 
est,  long-necked,  mi-brown  ben  is  Queen 
Kli/abrth:  oh,  the  cackling  when  she  lays 
an  egg!  The  large,  fat,  rather  stupid  one 
is  Queen  Anne;  I  let  Madge  choose  and 
name  Queen  Victoria  herself,  and  sin 
selected  a  plump  and  comely  grey  fowl, 
rather  diminutive,  with  an  imperative  and 
yet  appealing  cluck,  who  will  make,  I 
know,  an  excellent  wife  and  mother.  It 
is  all  very  well  to  keep  hens  and  to  eat 
their  eggs,  but  I  have  given  notice  to 
Madge  that  not  one  of  these  companions 
of  my  daily  life  shall  be  sold  to  the  butcher 
or  served  upon  my  table.  The  ginger- 
hn-ad  baby  comes  giggling  through  the 
gate  at  least  once  a  day,  and  it  has  taken 
a  great  fancy  to  Marie.  It  proves  to  be 
the  eleventh  and  youngest  child  of  my 
friend  the  blacksmith,  and  it  has  early  de- 
veloped,  probably  from  constant  associa 
tion  with  so  many  swift  feet,  an  abnormal 
talent  for  running  away. 
89 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

From  morning  until  night  I  am  busy 
with  a  thousand  and  one  things,  common 
place  things  mostly,  in  the  house,  or  the 
village,  or  beyond.  And  wherever  I  go, 
you  seem  near,  with  your  long,  thin  stride, 
and  your  preoccupied  face,  as  if  your  feet 
had  a  bit  of  difficulty  in  keeping  up  with 
your  mind.  There  is  a  strange  sense  al 
ways,  when  I  walk  in  the  forest,  or  along 
the  highway,  even  when  I  go  to  Farmer 
Wilde's  to  see  about  butter  and  vegeta 
bles,  that  you  are  walking  by  my  side. 

Peter  is  very  solicitous  about  the  wel 
fare  of  my  guest,  and  I  have  seen  him 
looking  at  her  with  vast  pity  in  his  eyes. 

"  Peter,"  I  reminded  him,  "  you  can  no 
longer  say  that  you  have  not  seen  a  Bel 
gian  refugee." 

"  No,  Miss,"  was  his  only  answer.  He 
digs  and  prunes,  still  arguing  his  coun 
try's  lack  of  need  of  him  in  this  pretence 
of  war. 

11  There's  the  British  fleet,  'm,"  he  ob- 
90 


TIIK    WORN     DOORSTEP 

.served,  with  line  scorn.  ;<  It  was  bordered 
out  at  the  beginning  of  this  so-called  war, 
and  told  to  sink  the  henemy's  fleet.  Wot 
'ave  we  Yard  of  it  since,  'm?  Nothing, 
nothing  at  all.  It's  just  bluff,  'in:  the 
fleet  is  out  on  the  'igh  seas  for  pleasure, 
junketing  at  our  expense.  Douhtless  all 
the  gentlemen  enjoy  a  cruise." 

Peter,"  I  say  solemnly,  "  don't  you 
really  know  that  a  German  submarine 
sank  three  British  cruisers  on  the  twenty- 
second  of  September,  the  Iln^nc.  the 
r/v.v.v//,  and  the  Aboulcir?  Do  you  think 
that  the  gallant  men  upon  them  went  to 
the  bottom  for  pleasure?" 

Peter  turned  a  triile  pale  under  the  red 
of  his  forehead  and  cheeks. 

"I   beard  that   rumour,"  he  remarked, 

with  an  attempt  at  airy  skepticism,  "and 

I    dessuy    you    believe    it.       I    dessay    you 

think  it  actually  happened.     But  I  refuse 

it;    when   was  the    British  fleet 

1  defeated! " 

91 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

There  was  a  tentative  something,  a 
touch  of  question,  in  the  bravado  of  his 
denial. 

"  Peter,"  I  suggest,  "  our  fall  garden 
ing  is  not  a  national  necessity;  there  is 
greater  need  of  you  elsewhere.  Why  not 
he  a  bomb-sweeper;  you  like  the  sea,  I 
believe?  "  Madge  listens,  her  broom  sus 
pended  in  mid-air,  as  if  it  were  listening 
too.  A  look  of  embarrassment  crosses 
Peter's  face,  as  he  rubs  his  cheek. 

1  The  bombs  are  very  explosive,  I've 
'eard,  W 

"  Peter,"  I  say,  "  if  this  is  an  imaginary 
war,  those  are  imaginary  bombs  and  do 
not  explode." 

"  I'm  not  so  sure  of  that,  Miss,"  says 
Peter  shrewdly. 

Another  British  cruiser,  the  Hawke, 
sunk  October  16.  There  is  wakening  fear 
in  the  hearts  of  the  English  people,  and 
there  is  deepening  courage.  The  faces 
that  I  see  here  and  in  the  near-by  towns, 
92 


TIIK    WORN     DOOKSTKP 

tlu-  letters  that  I  get,  have  one  expression. 
Party  dill'erenees  have  almost  ceased  to 
exist  in  the  political  world,  and  in  other 
ways,  T  think,  the  nation  is  being  welded 
into  one,  as  it  has  never  been.  Even  the 
voice  of  the  Vicar's  lady  has  lost  something 
of  its  condescension  in  speaking  to  com 
mon  folk;  I  saw  her  at  the  blacksmith's 
as  I  took  the  gingerbread  baby  home  for 
the  eighth  time,  and  she  spoke  with  less  of 
an  air  of  coining  down  to  the  level  of  her 
audience  than  I  should  have  believed  pos 
sible.  The  gentry  are  behaving  a  bit  less 
as  if  the  earth  were  their  private  monop 
oly,  and  the  subgentry,  like  our  Vicaress, 
are  taking  the  cue. 

A  few  days  ago  T  went  to  London, 
chiefly  to  get  clothing  for  Marie  and  to 
set  on  foot  inquiries  about  her  betrothed. 
Nothing  seemed  greatly  changed,  save 
that  there  were  fewer  people  in  the  streets 
and  the  restaurants,  and  that  many  uni 
forms  are  in  evidence.  The  theatres  are 
93 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

open,  and  people  are  going  about  their 
work  and  their  play  in  quite  usual  fashion, 
but  their  faces  wear  a  different  expression, 
an  impersonal  look,  and  a  certain  quiet 
exaltation.  Oh,  if  the  real  England,  that 
England  that  I  know  chiefly  through  the 
expression  of  her  inmost  self  in  her  match 
less  literature,  and  through  you,  could 
only  win  over  that  other  of  high,  exclud 
ing  walls  and  ancient  entailed  rights  of 
selfishness  and  of  belittling  snobbishness! 
You  will  admit  that  something  needs 
righting  in  a  social  condition  represented 
by  the  tale  of  the  two  sisters  at  Oxford,  - 
one  married  to  a  tailor,  one  married  to  a 
University  professor,  —  who  did  not  dare 
speak  to  each  other  in  the  street  for  fear 
of  consequences.  I  am  hopelessly  demo 
cratic;  the  wonderfully  good  manners  of 
the  perfectly  trained  English  servant  seem 
to  me  vastly  higher,  as  human  achieve 
ment,  than  the  manner  of  the  superior 
who  speaks  brutally  to  him.  The  sur- 
94 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

prised  gratitude  of  many  of  the  maids  and 
serub-women  here  when  one  addresses 
them  as  if  they  really  were  human  beings 
is  piteous. 

Yet  I  know  that  though  these  things 
be  true,  they  reflect  but  the  surface,  not 
the  depths.  Something  in  this  crisis, 
something  even  in  Peter's  crude  attacks, 
has  roused  a  deep  race  instinct  in  me,  long 
dormant.  Though  my  forebears  set  sail 
for  America  in  the  1630's,  my  sense  of  tilt- 
identity  of  our  destiny  with  that  of  Eng 
land  deepens  every  day.  I  am  ceasing  to 
say  "your",  and  unconsciously  slipping 
into  "  our  ";  perhaps  I  have  been  trying 
to  eriticize,  to  point  out  the  things  that  are 
wrong,  partly  as  a  measure  of  self-protec 
tion,  for  I  am  growing  sorry  that  the  Rev 
olutionary  \Var  ever  happened!  I  long 
for  England's  victory  in  this  war.  know- 
Hint  she  is  right:  I  dimly  susprc-t  that 
I  should  long  for  it  were  she  right  or 
urong;  and  1  I'eel  a  little  thrill  of  pride 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

that  my  home  is  in  this  England  of  yours, 
of  ours. 

Even  I,  who  am  often  indignant  in 
watching  the  Englishman's  manner 
toward  those  other  Englishmen  whom  he 
considers  his  social  inferiors,  can  discern 
his  profound  sense  of  responsibility 
toward  them.  Forgetting  the  mistakes  of 
to-day,  and  thinking  of  the  long  develop 
ment,  one  can  but  be  aware  in  England  of 
a  stable,  enduring  spirituality,  a  practical 
idealism,  unlike  that  of  the  earlier,  ideal 
istic  Germany,  —  a  something  tangential, 
disassociated  with  life,  —  in  that  it  is  a 
constant  sense  of  inner  values  working  out 
in  everyday  ways  and  habits.  Those  mys 
tical  habits  of  dreaming  fine  things  that 
are  never  done  will  not  save  the  world.  In 
my  growing  love  for  England,  I  am  more 
and  more  aware  of  its  disciplined,  mellow 
civilization,  treasuring  the  old  and  sacred 
in  beliefs,  in  institutions,  in  buildings;  its 
right,  controlling  habits ;  its  thousand  and 
96 


THE    WOUX    DOORSTEP 

one  wise  departures  from  the  measure  of 

rule  and  thumb:  its  uncodified,  unformu- 
lated  truth  of  action;  its  conduct  far 
more  logically  right  than  its  laws.  In 
the  very  reproach  oftenest  brought 
against  England  I  find  the  deepest  rea 
son  for  trusting  her,  that  she  allows 
human  instinct  a  larger  place  and  mere 
intellectual  theory  a  smaller  place  than 
does  any  other  nation  in  working  out  its 
destiny.  I  am  deeply  puzzled  by  my 
sense  of  the  Englishman's  wrong  attitude 
toward  his  supposed  inferior  while  I  rec- 
on-ni/e  that  inner  instinctive  sense  of 
necessary  adjustments,  that  genius  for 
living  that  makes  them  the  best  colonizers 
in  the  world  and  makes  their  rule  the  most 
lasting  anywhere. 

I  consulted  some  of  the  chief  authori 
ties  in  the  Belgian  relief  work  in  regard 

Marie,  -  your  England  shows  the  real 
humanity  at  the  heart  of  her  in  this  mag- 
niiieent  hospitality  to  an  outraged  nation. 
97 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

-  and  I  put  advertisements  into  several 
papers.  At  home  all  was  well,  save  that 
William  the  Conqueror  had  choked,  try 
ing  to  swallow  a  piece  of  English  bacon 
too  large  for  him,  and  was  dead.  So  per 
ish  all  who  lust  for  conquest! 

October  24.  Two  days  ago  came  a 
domestic,  not  to  say  a  social  crisis.  Two 
of  the  county  ladies  called  on  me,  accom 
panied  by  the  Vicaress;  they  must  have 
been  told,  I  think,  of  my  uncle  the  banker ! 
Forgive  this  gibe,  -  - 1  could  not  resist 
making  it;  we  always  disputed,  you  re 
member,  as  to  whether  your  countrymen 
or  mine  were  the  more  devout  worshippers 
of  gold.  To  say  truth,  I  have  met  these 
ladies  at  one  or  two  committee  meetings 
in  our  relief  work,  and  I  feel  duly  hon 
oured  by  the  call.  I  ring  for  Madge; 
Madge  does  not  appear;  going  to  the 
kitchen,  I  find  it  empty,  the  fire  out, 
water  dripping  forlornly  from  the  faucet. 
98 


TIIK    WORN    DOOKSTKT 

The  coal  in  the  sitting  room  grate  I  re 
plenish  myself  and  face  the  horror  of  the 
situation:  three  English  ladies  and  no 
tea!  \o  one  knows  better  than  I  what 
blasphemy  it  would  be  to  omit  the  sacred 
Hritish  rite  of  tea,  which  is  even  more  es- 
tahlished  than  the  Established  Church. 
Rising  to  the  occasion,  I  heat  water  in  a 
little  copper  kettle  on  the  coals  in  the 
sitting  room,  — "  So  resourceful,  as  all 
Americans  are,"  murmurs  one  lady.  I 
concoct  tea,  and  it  proves  very  good  tea 
indeed,  served  with  appetizing  little  cakes 
from  yesterday's  baking.  My  guests  go 
away  mollified;  not  so  am  I!  One  of 
them  had  so  many  scathing  things  to  say 
about  England's  policies  at  home  and 
abroad,  the  political  friendship  with  Rus 
sia,  the  desertion  of  Persia,  the  treatment 
of  Ireland,  the  mismanagement  of  the 
present  war,  that  1  was  driven  to  an 
attitude  of  defence.  Surely  there  is  some 
thing  greater  for  English  men  and  Eng- 
99 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

lish  women  to  do  now  than  to  stand 
aloof  and  criticize!  When  I  told  her 
that  I  thought  it  was  a  pity  to  con 
fuse  the  soul  of  the  English  people  with 
mistakes  of  contemporary  statesmen,  she 
looked  at  me  blankly,  nor  could  I  make 
her  understand.  It  is  odd  for  me,  who 
have  so  derided  our  Anglomaniacs  and 
superficial  imitators  of  the  English,  to 
come  so  hotly  to  the  defence  of  England. 
I  hardly  know  myself  what  is  going  on 
within  me.  It  is  the  England-in-the- 
long-run  that  I  reverence,  the  England 
of  the  great  poetry,  that  soul  of  England 
full  of  "high-erected  thoughts",  of 
sunny  faiths,  and  sweet  humanities.  And 
of  course,  through  you  too,  I  know  its 
very  best,  —  the  breeding  that  makes  no 
boast;  its  fine  reserve;  its  self-control; 
its  matchless,  silent  courage. 

It  is  a  chilly  day;   Don  and  the  Atom 
cuddle  side  by  side  at  the  hearth;    they 
are  great   friends   now.     Marie  returns 
100 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

with  bright  eyes  and  red  cheeks  from  a 
walk.  Presently  home  comes  Peter,  who 
lias  been  away  on  some  errand  of  his  own, 
to  a  fireless  hearth  and  an  empty  room. 
Home  and  garden  and  adjacent  field  he 
searches  in  vain. 

"  She  will  'ave  gone  to  one  of  her 
friends,  Miss,"  says  Peter  stoutly,  pro 
ceeding  to  lay  a  fire. 

I  assent,  but  writh  misgiving.  Madge 
had  never  failed  before,  nor  had  she  even 
gone  away  for  half  an  hour  without  tell 
ing  me.  As  Peter  helps  me  prepare  a 
simple  meal  to  serve  instead  of  dinner,  I 
turn  the  conversation  toward  military 
training  and  matters  of  war.  My  own 
contributions  to  the  conversation,  in  re 
gard  to  cavalry,  infantry,  and  maneuver 
ing  I  should  not  care  to  have  Lord 
Kitchener  hear.  Very  casually  I  remark 
that,  if  I  were  a  man,  1  should  like  to  be 
tidier. 

'  Would  you  now,  Miss?"  Peter  re- 
101 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

spends  amiably,  as  he  takes  up  the  toast 
ing-fork. 

"  There's  a  recruiting  station  at  Shep- 
perton,"  I  suggest,  as  I  cut  the  bread. 
'  There  are  five  thousand  men  encamped 
for  training  in  Wellington  Park;  and 
I've  been  told  that  there  are  several  hun 
dred  in  the  nearest  village,  —  what  is  it, 
Silverlea?  I  hardly  see  how  you  can  go 
about  so  much  without  seeing  them." 

'  It  is  odd,  isn't  it? "  Peter  answers 
wonderingly.  I  found  out  afterward  that 
the  villain  had  spent  that  very  day  at 
Wellington  Park,  watching  the  recruits 
drill. 

As  it  grew  later,  more  chilly  and  darker 
on  that  autumn  night,  I  could  see  the 
British  husband's  awful  wrath  growing 
within  Peter;  he  evidently  thought  that 
his  wife  had  run  away  with  some  one. 
Naturally  I  had  no  idea  what  had  hap 
pened,  but  I  had  my  doubts  of  this.  In 
the  first  place,  she  was  fundamentally 
102 


THE    \VOKX    DOORSTEP 

good ;  in  the  second  place,  one  Briton  was, 
I  felt  sure,  enough  for  Madge. 

Don  and  the  Atom  were  the  only  mem 
bers  of  the  family  who  really  enjoyed 
their  evening  meal  that  day.  They  lapped 
from  the  same  saucer,  though  not  at  the 
same  moment,  each  politely  waiting  a 
turn,  the  closest  of  allies,  and  doing  a  bit 
after  in  the  way  of  washing  each  other 
up.  Marie  watched  me  with  big,  sympa 
thetic  brown  eyes,  and  said  nothing. 
When  nine  o'clock  came,  I  was  as  worried 
as  was  Peter,  though  I  did  not  admit  it. 
We  had  decided  that  he  should  go  to  the 
Inn  for  the  pony,  and  that  we  would  begin 
a  s\  -stematic  search.  He  went  to  his  room 
to  get  ready  and  presently  appeared,  al 
ternately  red  with  wrath  and  pale  with 
anxiety. 

My  clothes,  'm,  my  Sunday  clothes 
are  gone.  Boots  and  all,  'in.  And  my 
'at,  my  Sunday  'at." 

Despair  could  go  no  further  than  this 
108 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

intonation  of  Peter's  Sunday  'at;  would 
that  any  'at  had  ever  meant  so  much  to 
me! 

"  She  'as  given  them  to  ?im,  Miss." 

"  To  whom?" 

"  That's  just  what  I  don't  know,  'm." 

What  could  one  think?  Had  Madge, 
the  admirable,  indeed  a  lover?  That  was 
unthinkable;  there  must  have  been  some 
accident.  At  least,  there  was  nothing  to 
do  but  to  notify  mine  host  of  the  Inn, 
and  to  present  the  case  to  the  local  Dog 
berry. 

We  were  ready  to  start,  when  I  heard  a 
little  click  of  my  garden  gate,  and  soft 
footsteps  came  up  the  brick  walk,  down 
which  streamed  the  light  of  the  porch 
lamp.  Red  rage  mounted  to  Peter's  eyes. 
"  It's  that  man,"  he  cried,  "  in  my 
clothes!"  I  kept  a  detaining  arm  on 
Peter's  sleeve,  —  his  second-best  sleeve. 
Where  had  his  best  been  intriguing? 

The  kitchen  door  opened  softly,  very 
104 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

softly :  \ve  stood  breathless  in  the  corner. 
If  it  were  a  burglar,  we  were  ready ;  were 
not  all  the  massive  British  kitchen  uten 
sils  near?  The  lamplight  fell  full  upon 
the  face  and  form  of  a  strange  man,  a 
very  strange  man,  the  strangest  I  ever 
saw,  plump,  round  of  face,  with  strag 
gling,  irregular  locks  of  hair  that  had 
been  newly  shorn,  —  a  decidedly  strange 
man,  in  Peter's  clothes. 

''You  —  you  hussy!"  said  Peter,  but 
the  sorry  epithet  expressed  a  world  of 
relief,  even,  I  thought,  of  endearment. 

One  would  have  supposed  that  Madge 
could  not  grow  redder;  yet  her  face  be 
came  even  more  a  flame. 

"  You,  a  respectable  British  female,'* 
said  Peter,  advancing  with  slow  heaviness 
of  tread,  as  if  Madge's  end  would  really 
come  when  he  reached  her  and  the  Sunday 
clothes;  "You,  a  British  female,  and  tl it- 
wife  of  an  honest  man,  out  on  the  high 
way  in  a  man's  clothes,  /////  clothes."  He 
105 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

took  hold  of  her  arm,  but  gently;  he 
would  not  have  dared  do  otherwise.  His 
wife  looked  at  him  steadily ;  he  could  not 
meet  her  glance,  and  his  eyes  fell. 

"You're  little  better  than  a  suffra 
gette,"  he  said  weakly. 

'  That  may  be,"  said  Madge,  not  with 
out  a  certain  loftiness,  touching  her  hair 
with  a  novel  feminine  gesture,  "  that  ma}' 
b'e;  but  I  am  better  than  an  able-bodied 
man  that  doesn't  hoffer  himself  to  his 
country.  The  suffragettes  are  fighting 
for  theirs." 

Peter  was  stricken;  he  had  nothing  to 
say.  Don,  arriving  and  unable  to  under 
stand,  barked  wildly  at  Madge,  and  she 
seemed  to  mind  his  remarks  much  more 
than  she  had  Peter's.  I  could  help  it  no 
longer,  and  I  burst  out  laughing. 

"  Madge,"  I  asked,  "  where  have  you 
been?" 

"  I've  been  to  the  recruiting  station  at 
Shepperton,  'm,"  said  Madge,  with  one 
106 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

look  at  Peter.  "  I  could  bear  it  no 
longer;  not  a  finger  raised  for  King  or 
Country." 

Peter  hung  his  head. 

"Or  the  'Ouse  of  Lords,"  Madge 
added  witheringly.  "  I've  been  a-reading 
and  a-reading,  'm,  in  those  papers  of  yours 
about  the  French  women  that  they  find, 
fighting  side  by  side  with  the  men,  for 
their  country,  and  about  the  Russian 
women  fighting  too ;  but  when  I  saw  yes 
terday  that  German  women  had  been 
found  fighting,  something  gave  way  in 
my  'ead.  I  think  you  call  it  brain-storm 
in  America,  'm.  Those  barbarian  women, 
from  God  knows  where,  fighting  for  King 
and  Country  and  their  'Ouse  of  Lords!  I 
said  to  myself  that  the  Snell  family 
should  send  one  man  to  the  seat  of  war.1' 

"  I've  been  a-considering,"  said  Peter, 

I've  IKTII  a-tliinking  it  out." 

*  The   present  h'our,"  glared   Madge. 
"  is  no  time  to  think! " 
107 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

'  That  was  evidently  the  exact  view  of 
the  European  statesmen  in  August," 
I  ventured,  but  Madge  and  Peter 
were  too  intent  to  catch  my  unkind 
whisper. 

"  So  I  put  on  Peter's  clothes,"  said 
Madge,  "  and  I  went  and  walked  to  Shep- 
perton  and  offered  myself.  Your  Queen 
Elizabeth  wTould  have  done  as  much." 

My  Queen  Elizabeth,  indeed! 

"What  did  they  say  to  you?"  de 
manded  Peter. 

:'  I  shan't  tell  you,"  said  Madge. 
And  she  never  did. 

October  22.  I  am  so  excited  that  I  can 
hardly  write;  my  fingers  tremble  and 
make  letters  that  look  like  bird-tracks. 
What  do  you  think  has  happened?  Who 
do  you  think  stopped  this  afternoon  at  my 
little  iron  gate?  It  seems  a  terrible  thing, 
an  incredible  thing  to  say,  but  I  could 
hardly  have  been  happier  about  it 
108 


THE    WORN   DOORSTEP 

if  it  had  been  you.  I  have  so  much  to  do, 
to  think  about,  while  Marie — ?  Her 
little  world  had  all  been  swept  away. 

I  was  weeding  this  neglected  garden; 
Peter,  leaning  on  his  spade,  was  eyeing 
me  with  some  disapproval. 

"  Ladies  shouldn't  be  doing  that  'ard 
work,  Miss,"  he  observed. 

"  That's  a  queer  opinion  for  a  social 
ist,"  I  remarked,  tugging  at  a  burdock 
root.  He  let  me  tug  and  went  on  with 
the  exposition  of  his  political  opinions, 
quite  unaware  of  my  meaning. 

"  This  need  not  keep  you  from  work 
ing,  Peter,"  I  suggested.  "  I've  no  inten 
tion  of  spading  that  bed." 

He  <liiL>  his  spade  in  with  a  little  grunt. 

"Everybody  ought  to  work;  that 
should  be  the  iirst  article  of  your  socialist 
creed." 

"  It  isn't,  W  said  Peter  eagerly. 

"Wouldn't  you  respect  the  House  of 
Lords    more    if    they    actually    worked, 
109 


THE    WORN   DOORSTEP 

Peter?"  This  brought  him  to  a  full 
stop. 

1  They  do  less  'arm  as  it  is,  Miss,"  he 
said  darkly. 

Here  we  heard  the  gate  creak;  the 
broken  latch  gives  a  little  unnecessary 
click.  An  odd  figure  was  standing  there, 
looking  like  a  tramp,  with  worn  and  bat 
tered  clothing,  a  Derby  hat  with  holes  in 
it,  and  dark  hair  straggling  over  his  fore 
head.  Don,  catching  sight  of  him,  barked 
furiously;  I  never  heard  him  bark  that 
way.  It  was  as  if  the  whole  outraged 
spirit  of  the  British  upper  classes  were 
crying  out  upon  the  poverty  and  the  mis 
ery  they  have  helped  create;  it  was  a 
perfect  yelp  of  class-consciousness.  This 
naturally  enlisted  my  sympathy  on  the 
side  of  the  tramp,  and  I  scolded  Don  and 
even  slapped  him  a  little.  I've  told  him 
often  enough  that  there  is  really  nothing 
so  vulgar  as  display  of  a  sense  of  social 
superiority,  and  I  do  not  like  these  re- 
110 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

lapses  from  the  democratic  spirit  that  I 
am  trying  to  cultivate   in  him. 

It  was  the  way  in  which  the  tramp 
watched  me  that  made  me  suspect  that  he 
was  not  a  tramp  at  all;  he  had  big, 
brown,  appealing  eyes,  like  those  of  a 
nice  dog,  —  not  Don,  but  a  friendly  shep 
herd  dog.  The  way  in  which  he  took  off 
his  battered  hat  enlightened  me  further, 
as  did  his  little  wistful  smile.  His  face 
was  a  bit  dirty,  but  my  face  has  been  dirty 
in  times  past;  so,  doubtless,  has  yours, 
Lord  Hamlet.  When  I  greeted  him  with 
good  afternoon,  he  took  a  piece  of  paper 
from  his  pocket,  and  at  first  I  wondered 
if  he  were  an  Armenian  with  lace,  going 
about  with  a  letter  of  introduction  from  a 
pastor,  —  or  don't  you  have  them  in  Eng 
land?  But  he  did  not  look  like  an  Arme 
nian,  and  he  very  evidently  did  not  have 
l.uv,  or  any  other  kind  of  luggage.  The. 
paper  proved  to  be  the  advertisement  that 
I  had  put  in  a  London  paper,  —  and  as 
111 


THE   WORN   DOORSTEP 

I  took  it,  it  struck  me  that  those  holes  in 
his  hat  might  be  bullet  holes. 

'You're  not  really  Henri  Dupre?" 
'  I  am,"  he  said  simply.  My  French  is 
fairly  inadequate  in  my  calmest  moments ; 
in  times  of  excitement  it  is  non-existent, 
but  he  must  have  understood  the  joy  in 
my  face,  and  the  hand  I  held  out  in  wel 
come.  He  shook  his  head ;  his  hand  was 
not  clean;  my  own  was  less  so,  and  I  was 
so  proud!  As  I  told  Peter,  if  I  had 
not  been  weeding,  our  guest  would  not 
have  been  properly  greeted.  Don,  the 
wretched  little  creature,  taking  his  cue 
from  me,  was  gaily  barking  a  welcome  in 
a  wholly  different  tone  of  voice  from  that 
which  he  had  used  at  first.  You  see,  he 
never  would  have  known  that  the  way 
farer  was  respectable  if  he  had  not  con 
sidered  himself  properly  introduced  by 
my  handshake. 

"  Is  Marie  Lepont  lien 

I  told  him  in  my  matter-of-fact  way 
112 


TIIK    WORN    DOORSTEP 

that  she  was,  and  I  said  nothing  more; 
they  might  do  their  own  explaining,  I 
thought,  as  they  understood  their  own 
language,  not  to  speak  of  anything  else, 
far  better  than  I.  So  I  only  motioned  to 
him  and  went  on  tiptoe  to  the  corner  of 
the  house;  Marie  was  sitting  in  the  gar 
den,  as  she  sits  so  often,  in  the  rocking- 
chair,  knitting,  knitting  for  the  soldiers. 
The  air  is  full  of  the  fragrance  of  ripen 
ing  apples,  of  falling  leaves,  and  fading 
fVrn.  She  is  very  quiet  in  the  sunshine, 
and  the  shadows  of  the  grapevine  leaves 
upon  her  face  hardly  change  for  half  an 
hour  at  a  time.  I  motioned  to  him,  and 
then  I  ran  away,  hack  to  my  weeding,  - 
to  anything.  I  f  it  were  really  he!  I  won 
dered  if  even  they  felt  an  anguish  so  in 
tense,  a  joy  so  intense  as  my  own.  It 
must  have  lent  me  greater  power  than  I 
really  have,  for  1  tugged  and  tugged  to 
relieve  my  feelings:  the  himlock  came 
up.  root  and  all,  and  1  sat  down  rather 
118 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

suddenly,  panting.     Peter  remonstrated 
mildly,  shaking  his  head. 

"You  really  shouldn't,  Miss!" 

"  Then  why  don't  you?  "  I  asked.  "  It 
was  here  all  the  time,  and  you  have  a 
spade." 

:<  I've  'ad  no  directions,  Miss,"  he  said 
stiffly.  "  But  I  don't  refer  to  the  weed 
ing;  I  dessay  it  is  because  you  are  an 
American  and  don't  understand,  but  you 
really  shouldn't  let  disrespectable  people 
in  that  way.  He  may  be  a  burglar;  he 
may  be  robbing  the  'ouse  at  this  very  min 
ute.  But  why,  if  you  don't  mind  me  ask 
ing,  are  you  crying,  Miss?  " 

'  I'm  not!"   I   answered   indignantly. 
'  I  never  cry.     Peter,  will  you  lend  this 
man  your  precious  Sunday  suit? " 

;£  Xever,  Miss!  "  declared  Peter,  some 
what  heated,  and  mopping  his  forehead. 
"A  tramp  like  that!" 

"  You  believe  in  the  brotherhood  of 
man,  don't  you?" 

114 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

"Of  course  I  do;   certingly  I  do." 

M  Madge,"  I  called  through  the  kitchen 
window,  "  please  start  the  heater  and  get 
water  ready  for  a  bath.  And  please  lay 
out  Peter's  Sunday  suit;  he  wants  to 
lend  it  to  a  brother  man." 

"Brother  man,  indeed!"  ejaculated 
Peter,  and  he  went  on  digging.  He  is 
getting  a  bed  ready  for  next  spring's 
daffodils. 

"  Peter,"  I  said  with  some  severity,  "  I 
want  to  see  if  I  can  respect  your  social 
convictions;  this  is  the  first  chance  I  have 
had  to  test  them." 

"Yes,  Miss,"  he  answered,  "but  I 
don't  see  what  that  has  to  do  with  me 
Sunday  suit." 

Not  a  sound  came  from  the  garden;  I 
kept  Don  with  me,  —  not  even  lie  should 
break  that  moment.  Then  I  told  Peter 
who  had  come,  how  the  lovers  had  lost 
each  other  in  that  mad  rush  for  safety, 
and  how,  for  days.  1  had  been  trying  to 
115 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

find  this  man,  for  I  was  very  sure  that  the 
right  man  had  come.  Peter  was  spell 
bound,  nor  could  he  dig  a  stroke  while  I 
was  talking.  Then  he  began  to  work, 
and  he  worked  furiously,  as  I  have  not 
seen  him  since  he  came. 

"  It's  quite  right,  'm,  about  the  suit," 
he  said  presently. 

I  worked  for  perhaps  an  hour,  while 
Peter  dug  like  one  inspired.  Madge 
heated  water  and  got  towels  ready,  peer 
ing  out  curiously  to  see  why.  A  touch  of 
evening  chill  came  into  the  air;  the 
rooks  began  to  go  home,  and  filmy  rose- 
flushed  clouds  trailed  over  the  sky  at  sun 
set.  Finally  I  shook  the  dirt  off  my 
hands,  finding  myself  very  stiff  as  I  tried 
to  stand. 

"Peter,"  I  asked,  "what  shall  I  do 
next?" 

"  I  think,  'm,  I'd  start  making  a  wed 
ding  cake,"  he  answered,  after  due  re 
flection. 

116 


THE    WORN    DOORSTKP 

"  For  a  futile  political  theorist,  you  do 
have  perfectly  unexpected  moments  of  in 
sight,"  I  told  him. 

"  Yes,  Miss,"  said  Peter. 

Silence,  except  for  the  rooks,  the  sound 
of  the  brook,  and  a  little  wayward  flutter 
of  the  leaves  where  the  wind  was  moving. 
I  went  to  the  kitchen  and  added  some 
thing  un-British  and  digestible  to  the 
supper  menu,  then  walked  up  and  down, 
wondering  why  a  man  probably  famished 
did  not  appear.  Finally  I  decided  that  I 
must  investigate  and  tiptoed  my  way  to 
the  corner  of  the  house.  Marie  was  still 
sitting  in  her  chair;  her  knitting  was  on 
the  ground  beside  her.  The  shadow  of 
the  grapevine  was  gone,  and  her  face  was 
alive  with  light  from  within  and  without. 
The  level  shafts  of  sunlight  that  touched 
it  fell  too  on  the  red  brick  wall  behind 
her,  where  the  espaliered  pear  tree  was 
etched  in  dark  lines,  and  all  the  garden 
a  .soft  glow  of  October  gold.  The 
117 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

stranger  was  sitting  on  the  ground  with 
his  head  against  Marie's  knees,  and  her 
little  shawl  over  his  shoulders,  sleeping 
like  a  child  that  had  found  its  way  home. 

As  I  crept  near,  Marie  looked  up,  and 
a  heavenly  smile  came  over  her  face.  She 
took  my  hand  and  held  it,  kissing  it  more 
than  once,  and  she  said  over  and  over: 
'*  Mademoiselle;  Mademoiselle,"  and 
again,  "  Mademoiselle." 

We  let  her  lover  stay  as  long  as  we 
dared  on  the  brick  walk,  covering  him 
warmly  with  steamer  rugs.  Later  we 
found  that  he  had  just  reached  England 
and  had  hardly  slept  for  a  week.  The 
sunset  faded,  and  the  stars  grew  bright, 
and  still  he  leaned  his  head  against 
Marie's  knee  and  slept  the  sleep  of 
exhaustion. 

Presently  we  wakened  him;   there  was 

a  great  sound  of  splashing  water;   Marie 

ran  up-stairs  to  do  her  hair  over  again 

and  came  down  flushed  like  a  rose,  re- 

118 


THE    WORN    DOOKSTKP 

vitalized,  alive  as  I  had  not  dreamed  she 
could  be  alive,  and  at  last  our  guest  ap 
peared,  clean  and  smiling.  He  was  evi 
dently  amused  by  the  odd  fit  of  Peter's 
clothes,  but  too  tired  and  too  happy  to 
say  much.  I  sped  to  the  kitchen  to  make 
the  French  omelette;  Madge  cannot  do 
it,  —  no  Briton  could;  it  has  to  be  manip 
ulated  in  just  the  right  fashion,  turned  at 
the  exact  fraction  of  a  second,  and  served 
in  just  the  right  way.  You  should  have 
seen  Don,  when  he  found  the  stranger  in 
your  place,  apologizing,  snuffing  daintily, 
touching  him  with  a  friendly  and  be 
seeching  paw,  pretending  that  he  had 
always  known! 

Of  course  the  lovers  were  holding  hands 
under  the  table;  of  course  you,  as  an 
Knu-lishman,  would  liavr  thought  them 
effusive  but  I  should  have  been  terribly 
hurt  if  they  had  not  been  effusive  about 
that  omelette.  When  I  rise  to  the  occa 
sion  like  this,  I  like  to  be  appreciated;  I 
119 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

had  nothing  to  complain  of  that  night. 
Tea  and  toast  and  jam;  a  few  tears,  and 
much  laughter,  and  a  Sultana  cake  —  the 
very  kind  that  grew  in  Oxford  windows 
and  graced  our  five  o'clock  banquets;  a 
Sultana  cake  calls  to  my  mind  the  pro- 
foundest  problems  of  life  and  destiny,  so 
many  of  them  we  discussed  over  the 
crumbs,  —  this,  I  am  afraid,  meant  a 
rather  ascetic  repast  for  the  young  Bel 
gians,  but  I  thought  that  anything  more, 
with  their  great  draughts  of  happiness, 
would  be  indigestible.  Peter  took  Henri 
to  the  Inn  and  got  a  room  for  him. 
Though  he  was  there  more  than  three 
weeks,  mine  host  would  not  let  me  pay  a 
farthing,  —  no,  indeed!  The  Belgians 
are  the  guests  of  the  English  nation,  he 
said,  and  he  was  glad  to  have  his  chance 
to  shelter  one  of  them. 

November  1.    War,  unceasing  war  in 
the  trenches,  with  rumours  of  a  British 
120 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

naval  defeat  in  South  American  waters, 
and  little  encouraging  news  save  that  the 
Germans  have  failed  to  reach  Dunkirk 
and  Calais.  England's  best  are  dying, 
your  kind,  —  England's  noblest  sons  rush 
ing  to  the  danger  places,  foolishly, 
grandly  brave.  One  can  feel  throughout 
the  country  the  great  purpose  shaping 
itself  to  the  needs  of  the  moment,  as  it 
does  slowly  but  surely  in  this  land.  That 
is  the  secret  of  this  people:  they  can  rise 
to  a  challenge,  meet  any  crisis  whatever 
when  it  comes;  and  though  I  know  that 
unpreparedness  has  cost  them  much,  they 
are  greater  and  better  than  if  they  had 
devoted  their  best  energy  for  five  and 
twenty  years  to  getting  ready  for  war. 
Enthusiasm  kindles  under  the  challenge 
of  disaster;  the  finest  have  already  an 
swered  the  call;  the  less  fine  make  the 
great  refusal.  You  go,  but  Peter  stays, 
and  Peter's  kind  all  over  England 
stays.  .  .  . 

121 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

November  5.  Peter  does  not  stay! 
Peter  is  going  to  the  war!  For  several 
days  he  has  been  very  critical  of  civiliza 
tion,  very  severe  upon  his  country  and  her 
rulers;  at  times  he  seemed  to  think  him 
self  the  only  real  pillar  of  Church  and 
State.  Some  struggle  was  going  on 
within  him;  I  have  learned  enough  of 
him  to  know  that  if  he  expresses  a  feeling, 
it  is  one  he  does  not  have!  For  him,  as 
for  me,  the  horror  of  the  present  moment 
has  been  intensified  by  coming  into  con 
tact  with  those  who  have  actually  suf 
fered.  All  that  I  could  understand  of 
Henri  Dupre's  account  I  have  translate^ 
into  English  for  Peter's  benefit,  and  the 
sight  of  the  bullet-riddled  hat  has  plunged 
him  in  deep  thought. 

He  saw  your  picture,  the  picture  of  you 
in  khaki.  Madge,  unpermitted,  had  taken 
it  into  the  kitchen  to  polish  the  frame  of 
oak.  Peter  looked  at  it  uneasily. 

"  A  friend  of  yours,  Miss?  " 
122 


THK    WORN    DOORSTEP 

"  Yes,  Peter." 

"  At  the  front,  'm?  " 

"At  the  front,  Peter,"  I  answered. 
I  could  not  have  said  anything  else,  and 
even  if  I  live  to  be  a  hundred,  I  shall  not 
think  of  you  any  other  way  except  as  at 
the  front,  fighting  if  need  be,  carrying 
messages  across  the  danger  zone,  with  no 
thought  of  danger. 

It  was  a  great  advance  in  Peter  to  ad 
mit  the  existence  of  a  front;  he  has  per 
sisted  in  declaring  the  war  a  bit  of  sensa 
tional  romance,  devised  by  the  House  of 
Lords  for  their  own  entertainment.  It 
was  a  brooding  Peter  who  busied  himself 
with  rubbing  up  the  knives,  —  he  has  been 
unusually  attentive-  to  Madge  since  her 
escapade;  his  mind  seemed  to  be  running 
on  troubles  greater  than  his  own. 

"  Do  you  know  where  our  army  is  sup 
posed  to  be  now,  'm?"  he  asked,  when  I 
told  him  that  we  had  no  good  news  from 
the  seat  of  war. 

123 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

Our  army!  We  were  getting  on!  I 
gave  him  my  best  information  about  our 
hard-pressed  line  in  the  west. 

"  It's  astonishing  that  those  Germans 
are  able  to  fight  at  all,  'm,  when  they  have 
once  met  the  British,"  said  Peter  gloom 
ily,  polishing  a  huge  carving  knife  as  if  it 
were  a  sword.  :<  Meeting  the  French,  that 
is  different;  they  are  a  flighty  people 
and  very  hexcitable." 

'  Your  knowledge  of  history  needs  to 
be  brought  up  to  date,  Peter,"  I  ventured. 
"  Anything  less  flighty  than  that  magnif 
icent  people  of  France  at  this  present 
moment  the  world  has  never  seen." 

"  It  must  be  very  difficult,  'm,  fight 
ing  on  the  Continent,  for  one  who  does  not 
speak  the  foreign  tongues.  And  I 
couldn't  eat  frogs,  'm;  I'd  almost  rather 
'ave  the  Germans  as  allies ;  sausages  aren't 
as  bad  as  frogs  by  'alf." 

Later  I  heard  him  muttering  to  him 
self. 

124 


THE    WORN    DOORSTKT 

"If  the  'Ouse  of  Lords  is  really  in 
trouble,"  said  Peter,  fighting  the  great 
fight  with  self,  "  if  the  'Ouse  of  Lords 
really  needs  me  -  Of  course,  the  throne 
is  more  or  less  a  figure'ead,  but  I  shouldn't 
like  to  see  it  fall  just  now,  especially  it' 
the  henemy  is  coming.  ...  I  should  like 
to  himpress  them  as  much  as  possible." 
was  when  he  was  sweeping  the  walk  that 
I  heard  him  say:  "  And  I  should  like  to 
see  Bobs  once  more." 

But  one  day  determined  Peter's  future 
destiny  and  his  rank  as  a  man  and  a 
Briton.  Peter  had  gone  to  the  coast,  with 
Puck  and  the  cart,  spending  the  night  at 
a  sister's  on  the  way.  He  had  some  busi 
ness  at  Yarmouth,  he  said.  I  devised 
some  errands  for  him  and  encouraged  his 
going.  I  thought  that  it  would  perhaps 
prove  to  be  his  farewell  to  his  sister  before 
going  to  war. 

Those  were  strange  days,  the  days  of 
Peter's  absence,-    tense,  full  of  nameless 
125 


THE   WORN    DOORSTEP 

anxiety.  That  early-morning  feeling  of 
suspense,  of  expectancy,  lasted  into  the 
afternoon;  and  one  early  morning  had 
brought  us  the  unmistakable  sound  of 
guns  from  the  sea.  Peter  came  rattling 
home  in  the  late  afternoon,  a  pale,  dis 
traught  Peter,  who  seemed  to  have  lost 
several  pounds.  He  came  into  the  gar 
den  where  I  was  tying  up  rosebushes  for 
the  winter;  at  first  he  seemed  unable  to 
speak,  but  at  last  gasped  out,  "  Those 

Germans!"  and  the  gasp  ended  in 

a  little  sob.  As  I  watched  him,  I  found 
myself  sharing  his  trembling  indignation. 

"  German  ships,  'm,  men-of-war,  stand 
ing  off  our  coast,  bombarding;  it  has 
never  been  attacked  before.  I  saw  them 
with  my  own  eyes;  I  'eard  them  with  my 
own  ears! " 

The  firing,  then,  had  had  the  signifi 
cance  that  we  dreaded.  It  began  at  about 
seven  o'clock  in  the  morning  on  Novem 
ber  third,  terrifying  the  peaceful  folk  of 
126 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

the  seacoast  town,  shell  after  shell,  report 
af'terreport  for  nearly  half  an  hour.  Peter, 
who  was  getting  an  early  start  for  home, 
had  taken  Puck  and  the  cart  to  a  house 
on  the  outskirts  of  the  town,  where  he  was 
getting  a  hag  of  very  superior  fertilizer. 
Then  came  the  great  noise  and  the  splash 
ing  ;  little  if  any  actual  damage  was  done 
to  buildings  or  to  people,  yet  Peter  con 
tended  that  Puck  was  actually  struck  on 
the  shoulder  by  some  fragment  of  splin 
tering  wood  or  flying  stone  dislodged  by 
a  shell.  Those  shells  may  have  missed 
their  intended  mark,  but  they  went  home 
to  the  heart  of  the  time-expired  man, 
Peter  Snell.  He  knew  at  last  that  there 
was  a  war,  and  I  knew  —  what  he  him 
self  had  not  yet  realized  —  that  he  was 
going  to  it. 

Peter  lacks  descriptive  powers;    I  got 
from  him  little  idea  of  the  actual  BOOM  in 
all   the   fright   and   confusion.      When   lie- 
had  found  that  there  was  nothing  he  could 
127 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

do  to  help,  he  had  sped  toward  home,  in 
tent  on  carrying  out  his  unavowed  pur 
pose.  Asking  how  Puck,  now  standing 
with  drooping  head  at  the  gate,  had  be 
haved  at  the  crisis,  I  got  the  account  that 
I  expected,  and,  as  we  petted  this  vet 
eran  of  the  war  and  dressed  a  small  hurt 
on  his  shoulder,  I  heard  how  he,  the  most 
antic  pony  in  the  British  Isles,  had  held 
his  ground,  had  jumped  only  moderately, 
had  endured  the  crashing  and  the  splash 
ing,  standing  with  his  four  legs  braced  in 
the  sand,  trembling  all  over,  while  Peter, 
dazed  a  bit  at  first,  came  to  his  senses. 

"  And  I  will  say,  'm,  that  he  showed 
more  'ead  than  I  'ad  myself,  for  the  reins 
were  loose  on  his  back,  I  'aving  dropped 
them  to  put  in  the  bag  of  fertilizer.  'E 
never  offered  to  run,  'm! " 

Puck,  the  war  veteran,  took  our  praises 
modestly,  making  no  claim  to  be  recog 
nized  as  a  hero;  he  helps  me  understand 
the  British  temper,  not  to  say  the  British 
128 


THE    WORN    DOOKSTKP 

constitution.  No  paper  theories  for  him! 
The  unwritten  law  of  common  sense 
available  when  needed  is  admirably  em 
bodied  in  him.  That  power  of  keeping 
your  head  while  others  lose  theirs  is  what 
wins  in  the  long  run,  and  despite  the  dis 
couragement  of  this  present  moment,  I 
feel  confident  that  the  English  will  win 
in  the  end.  The  Germans  plan,  theorize, 
show  great  forethought,  but  are  lost  with 
out  a  programme.  Life  does  not  go  by 
plans  and  charts;  no  known  precautions 
can  foresee  its  emergencies.  Unless  some 
chemical  or  electric  invention  of  the  Teu 
tons  can  remove  the  element  of  uncer 
tainty  from  existence,  surely  victory  will 
go  to  the  people  who  can  meet  the  unfore 
seen  ;  pull  themselves  together  and  know, 
without  forethought,  what  to  do  in  an 
instant's  danger.  All  these  meditations 
passed  through  my  head  as  Puck  shook 
his  mam,  making  light  of  his  adventure, 
and  trotted  away  down  the  street  to  his 
129 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

stable  with  an  unmistakable  air  of  "  Eng 
land  expects  every  pony  to  do  his  duty." 

The  country  thrills  with  indignation, 
surprise,  and  increasing  resolution;  the 
impossible  has  happened,  and  these  invio 
late  shores  have  been  desecrated  by  attack. 

Peter  is  away,  Peter  in  khaki,  with 
something  already  gone  from  his  laggard 
step,  with  firmer  and  more  self-respecting 
tread,  recalling  the  old  training  which  he 
was  beginning  to  forget.  Surely,  because 
of  his  experience  as  a  soldier,  they  will  let 
him  go  soon  to  the  front.  The  sympathy 
and  the  admiration  in  the  eyes  of  our  fugi 
tives  have  nerved  him,  as  nothing  else  has 
done,  for  the  great  adventure.  I  heard 
Henri  giving  him  some  French  lessons, 
strictly  along  the  line  of  requests  for  food 
and  drink;  the  French  will  make  up  in 
swiftness  of  understanding  what  he  lacks 
in  pronunciation.  His  last  days  with 
Madge  have  been  funny  and  tragic  too. 
Her  first  remark,  on  hearing  of  the  Yur- 
130 


THE    WORN    DOORSTKP 

mouth  incident,  was  along  the  old  line  of 
urging  him  to  war. 

"  Some  minds,"  she  remarked  firmly, 
"  need  shot  and  shell  to  open  'em."  But 
I  could  not  help  noticing  that  when  he 
began  to  talk  about  going,  she  stopped 
talking  about  it.  Her  face  has  been  trag 
ically  comic  as  she  has  watched  him,  in 
a  Falstaff  "  1 1  e-that-died-o'- Wednesday  " 
mood,  packing  his  belongings.  I  heard 
the  sound  of  loud  sobbing  in  the  kitchen 
as  she  made  herself  a  cup  of  tea  the  after 
noon  he  went  away.  Could  it  be  Madge 
who  was  muttering  questions  as  to  why 
the  King  didn't  go  to  war  himself  if  he 
wanted  war? 

November  25.  A  wedding,  actually  a 
wedding,  in  the  little  red  house,  which 
wakens  gladly  to  its  ancient  responsibili 
ties!  Weddings  enough  have  I  seen,  but 
this  is  the  first  that  I  ever  managed  from 
start  to  finish;  it  was  much  more  my  own 
181 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

than  if  I  had  been  married  myself,  for  I 
had  to  do  all  the  planning,  coach  the  act 
ors,  superintend  the  catering,  and  do  the 
decorating  with  my  own  hands.  The  only 
thing  I  did  not  attempt  was  performing 
the  ceremony. 

We  had  such  joyous  weeks,  after  the 
banns  were  published!  Marie,  I  am  sure, 
quite  forgot  her  sorrow;  I  quite  forgot 
you,  most  of  the  time,  —  I  mean  in  my 
upper  and  superficial  mind.  Down 
under,  of  course,  in  the  vital  part  of  my 
soul,  you  are  I,  I  am  you:  there  is  no 
remembering  or  forgetting,  for  I  am  liv 
ing  your  life  and  mine  in  a  fashion  pro 
found  and  strange.  We  were  busy  every 
minute,  busy  with  the  outer  things  of  life 
that  ride  on  the  surface  of  the  deep  cur 
rents,  —  bobbing  up  and  down  in  the 
sunshine. 

First,  there  was  Marie's  trousseau.  She 
begged  me  with  tears  to  get  her  nothing 
more;  but  a  girl  must  have  clothing,  be 
132 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

she  married  or  single,  so  we  purchased 
much  muslin,  —  "  calico,"  they  call  it,  oh, 
horrors!  What  can  one  think  of  a  nation 
that  calls  cotton  flannel  "  swan's-down 
calico "  ?  We  found  a  little  sewing 
woman  in  the  village,  and  she  did  her  in 
efficient  best  on  an  ancient  sewing  ma 
chine.  Much  of  the  finishing  we  had  to 
do  ourselves,  so  afternoons  we  sat  in  the 
garden  and  stitched.  My  buttonholes 
would  not  call  forth  commendations  from 
any  ladies'  journal,  but  what  they  lacked 
in  delicacy  they  made  up  in  strength. 
Buttonholes  for  war,  I  consoled  myself, 
as  I  saw  the  barricades  that  I  had  erected 
round  the  little  gashes,  are  a  different 
matter  from  buttonholes  for  peace. 

Marie's  ready-made  travelling  suit,  for 
which  I  sent  to  London,  fitted  fairly  well; 
as  did  the  boots  for  both  of  them.  When 
they  overwhelmed  me  with  thanks,  I  had 
to  talk  very  earnestly  with  them;  at  least 
I  am  growing  more  fluent,  and  they  never 
133 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

laugh,  only  once  or  twice  I  have  seen  the 
corners  of  their  mouths  twitching  uncon 
trollably,  and  once  tears  came  into  Marie's 
eyes  as  she  tried  to  keep  from  laughing. 
They  are  exquisitely  courteous,  and  would 
die  rather  than  be  rude.  I  summoned  all 
my  resources  from  grammar,  dictionary, 
and  heroic  plays;  at  last  the  world  has 
faced  an  occasion  that  justifies  the  gran 
diloquence  of  French  tragedy. 

I  told  them  that  we  were  honouring  our 
selves  in  being  allowed  to  care  for  any 
members  of  this  stricken,  dauntless  nation. 
More  than  anything  that  could  be  done 
for  them  had  they  done  for  the  world; 
how  could  we  ever  repay  our  debt  to  this 
little  people  with  its  heroic  young  King? 
What  I  was  doing  I  did,  not  for  them 
(think  of  having  sufficient  French  to  be 
able  to  prevaricate  in  it  already!),  but  for 
my  country  and  their  country  —  and  for 
England;  it  was  not  a  personal  but  an  in 
ternational  matter.  They  may  not  have 
134 


TIIK    WORN    DOORSTEP 

understood  all  my  syntax,  but  my  general 
meaning  they  understood  perfectly,  and 
Don  helped  me  very  greatly  by  sitting  on 
his  hind  legs  and  offering  to  shake  hands, 
first  with  one  and  then  with  the  other. 
He,  at  least,  understands  my  academic 
French ! 

There  had  to  be  a  wedding  dress ;  I  in 
sisted  on  a  white  one;  it  was  only  China 
silk,  made  with  a  simplicity  which,  I  pre 
sume,  outraged  Marie's  grandmother's 
traditions.  As  I  explained  to  her,  if  she 
goes  back  to  London  to  help  the  authori 
ties  with  the  refugees,  while  Henri  returns 
to  Belgium  to  enter  the  army,  she  could 
doubtless  loan  this  gown  for  other  wed 
dings,  for  among  the  fugitives  many-- I 
hoped  many  —  another  pair  of  lovers 
would  perhaps  be  reunited.  At  this,  her 
eyes  filled  with  tears,  and  she  uttered 
not  another  word  of  remonstrance;  she 
starts  on  a  quest  to  find  others  to  wear 
it. 

185 


THE   WORN    DOORSTEP 

So  she  wore  the  white  frock  at  her 
wedding,  and  the  house  was  brave  in  its 
bridal  array!  Yellowing  ferns,  autumn 
leaves,  and  great  golden  chrysanthemums 
and  white  decked  the  living  room ;  outside 
the  dim  red  and  gold  of  the  autumn  woods 
in  hazy  distance  recalled  the  ancient  man 
uscripts  that  you  showed  us  in  the  sacred 
recesses  of  the  Bodleian.  To  think  that  I 
should  live  to  see  a  Roman  Catholic  priest 
marrying  two  young  folk  by  my  fireplace ! 
Marie  and  Henri  were  quite  polite  but 
very  determined  to  be  married  according 
to  the  rites  of  their  own  Church,  and  it 
was  done.  His  Reverence  plainly  did  not 
want  to  officiate  at  my  house,  but  not  in 
vain  have  I  associated  with  Puck,  choos 
ing  him  for  guide,  philosopher,  and 
friend,  and  obstinacy  won.  Henri  wore 
a  new  dark  tweed  business  suit  which 
Peter  insisted  on  giving  him;  he  is  a  fine- 
looking  man  when  you  see  him  clothed 
and  in  his  right  mind,  the  torn  hat  van- 
136 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

ished.  Both  faces  have  a  look  of  sorrow 
and  of  shock  that  should  not  be  on  faces 
so  young,  but  there  is  also  a  look  of  in 
tense  and  quiet  happiness.  Even  if  they 
are  separated  again,  they  will  have  had 
something  of  the  joy  of  life  in  these  brief 
hours  and  days  since  they  found  each 
other. 

Our  wedding  feast  was  the  simplest 
ever  set  before  mortals,  unless  possibly 
our  Pilgrim  fathers  and  mothers  had  a 
simpler  in  starvation  days  in  the  old  col 
ony,  with  bride  cake  made  perhaps  of 
Indian  meal!  We  had  tables  in  the  gar 
den,  and  a  few  simple  things  to  eat  and 
drink,  centering  in  that  wedding  cake 
upon  which  Peter  had  insisted.  Had  not 
Madge  and  I  spent  a  whole  morning  over 
it,  with  its  raisins  and  its  currants,  its 
spiers  and  its  chopped  nuts?  :<  Leave  off 
the  frosting,  'm!"  Madge  had  ejaculated 
in  horror.  "  That  would  be  a  heathing 
thing  to  do!  "  \Vhcn  I  told  her  that  for 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

most  people  nowadays  the  frosting  was 
rubbed  off  of  life,  she  looked  at  me  as  if 
she  thought  me  mad.  So  she  does,  but 
harmless  mad. 

Perhaps  the  mild  November  air,  which 
harmonizes  all  things,  —  sad,  soft  and 
sweet,  —  helped  harmonize  the  diverse 
elements  at  that  wedding  feast.  There 
were  the  Vicar  and  the  Roman  priest 
peacefully  grazing  as  one;  the  Vicaress 
was  affably  chatting  with  mine  host  and 
hostess  as  on  equal  terms;  one  of  my 
county  ladies  was  entertaining  the  little 
dressmaker  who  cannot  sew.  I  did  my 
best  in  inviting  them  to  outrage  as  many 
conventions  as  possible ;  they  submitted  to 
the  necessities  of  the  occasion,  and  still  the 
House  of  Lords  stands,  or  sits,  King 
George  is  on  his  throne,  and  the  kingdom 
has  not  fallen. 

I  hope  it  never  will! 

It  had  been  hard  to  induce  the  Vicar  to 
come,  but  I  reminded  him  that  our  Church 
138 


TIIK    WORN    DOORSTEP 

had  been  a  Roman  Catholic  Church  before 
Queen  Elizabeth's  day,  and  that,  in  the 
holy  ground  of  the  churchyard,  Roman 
Catholic  dust  was  mingled  with  Church  of 
England  dust.  How,  at  this  cruel  mo 
ment  in  the  world's  history,  the  truth  cries 
out  that  there  should  be  no  struggle  be 
tween  Christian  and  Christian,  only 
between  Christian  and  Pagan!  He  came; 
high  and  low  alike  nibbled  our  little  cakes 
and  consumed  our  ices,  and  drank  the 
simple  beverage  made  of  lemons  and  other 
ingredients  served  from  a  wonderful  old 
blue  punch  bowl.  Ay,  we  were  all  allies 
that  day! 

So  they  were  married  and  feted,  and 
when  it  was  all  over,  mine  host  drove 
them  to  the  railway  station,  and  I  fol 
lowed  with  Puck  and  the  pony  cart,  Don 
sitting  l>eside  me,  and  the  gingerbread 
baby  with  two  of  its  brothers  sitting  on  the 
other  side.  The  village  windows  and 
doorways  were  crowded  with  friendly 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

faces,  for  the  story  of  the  two  re-united 
lovers  had  spread  far,  and  many  a  kindly 
good-bye  was  spoken  by  people  who  had 
never  met  them.  I  had  determined  that 
Puck,  who  had  found  Marie,  and  to  whom 
the  happy  outcome  of  the  story  was  due, 
should  have  a  place  of  honour  at  the  part 
ing  moment,  but  Marie's  last  glimpse  of 
him  showed  him  indignantly  shaking  off 
the  white  rosettes  that  had  been  fastened 
to  his  headstall. 

They  waved  back  quite  a  merry  fare 
well,  and  then  they  disappeared,  vanishing 
behind  the  great  cloud  of  tragedy  that 
hangs  so  close.  I  can  see  only  suffering 
ahead  of  them.  They  consented  to  take 
a  loan  from  me,  not  to  be  repaid  until  their 
country  is  free,  and  they  promised  again 
and  again  to  let  me  know  if  they  came  to 
want. 

It  is  lonely  to-night,  beloved,  under  my 
roof. 

140 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

December  27.  Winter  is  gentler  here 
than  at  home,  bringing  at  times  enfolding 
grey  mist  and  hours  of  rain ;  yet  we  have- 
had  many  days  of  clear  and  sunny  cold, 
and  snow  lias  fallen  on  the  roof  of  the 
little  red  house.  My  royal  family  of  fowls 
lives  a  subdued  but  happy  life  in  the  house 
of  Peter's  making ;  Puck  has  taken  up  his 
residence  at  the  Inn,  for  cold  has  come,  and 
Peter  is  far  away.  The  English  robin 
stays  with  us  evidently  throughout  the 
winter;  the  rooks  have  not  deserted;  and 
we  are  visited  daily  by  silver-winged  gulls 
which  come  all  the  way  from  the  sea  for  the 
food  we  put  out. 

My  home  with  the  little  "  h  "  is  seldom 
empty ;  for  two  of  these  winter  weeks  we 
had  here  two  small  Belgian  boys,  eight 
and  ten  years  old,  very  red  of  cheek  and 
black  of  hair,  and  very  much  hoy.  What 
a  two  weeks!  The  Atom  immediately  re 
treated  to  the  loft  over  the  kitchen,  com 
ing  down  only  for  its  meals.  It  found 
14,1 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

a  warm  corner  by  the  chimney  where  it 
cuddled  in  safety. 

Don  clung  close  to  my  side;  he  would 
not  make  friends.  His  dictum  was  that 
he  would  associate  with  either  the  aris 
tocracy  or  the  peasantry,  but  that  the 
lower  middle  class  he  would  not  tolerate. 
Those  boys,  who  had  tried  to  tie  a  tin 
can  to  his  tail,  Ins  tail,  that  organ  of  fine 
expressiveness,  equal  to  English  prose 
style  at  its  best,  were  not  gentlemen, 
and  he  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
them. 

I  was  glad  to  see  that  the  suffering  of 
the  past  weeks  had  not  ruined  their  young 
lives,  but  I  admit  a  failure  in  managing 
my  guests.  Even  Madge  could  do  noth 
ing  with  them,  though  her  hand  is  heavy; 
I  do  not  approve  of  corporal  punishment, 
but  life  in  theory  and  life  in  practice 
seem  amazingly  different  at  times,  and  I 
looked  the  other  way.  They  demanded 
the  tail  feathers  of  Hengist  and  Horsa  for 
142 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

their  play  of  American  Indian,  and  I  dis 
covered  as  I  defeated  their  purpose  that 
they  thought  they  were  living  with  an 
Indian  lady  and  were  trying  to  garb 
themselves  appropriately.  I  rose  to  the 
challenge  as  best  I  could;  have  I  not 
vowed,  whatever  happens,  never  to  be  an 
"  old  maid  "  ?  I  romped  with  them  in  the 
meadow,  played  "  tag,"  and  helped  them 
make  boats  to  sail  on  the  stream,  but  I  had 
no  control  over  them.  Puck  was  the  only 
perfectly  successful  disciplinarian,  and 
whenever  they  tried  to  climb  on  his  back, 
or  ride  by  clinging  to  his  tail,  his  quick 
little  hind  heels  —  fortunately  only  his 
fore  feet  are  shod  —  accomplished  what 
neithei  coaxing,  admonition,  nor  enforced 
last in(<>  could  aeeomplish.  They  were  not 
really  bad,  only  dwelling  in  that  Stone 
Age  through  which  so  many  men-children 
pass.  A  neighbouring  fanner  and  his  wi IV 
wanted  to  adopt  them,  and  T  thankfully 
let  them  go,  calling  in  the  village  carpen- 
143 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

ter  to  help  Madge  and  me  make  the  nec 
essary  repairs. 

There  was  peace,  we  are  told,  for  a  few 
hours  on  Christmas  day  in  the  trenches; 
hut  Christmas  should  mean  lasting  peace! 
The  attack,  less  than  two  weeks  ago,  on 
our  undefended  coast  towns,  Hartlepool, 
Scarborough,  Whithy,  has  enkindled  as 
nothing  else  has  done  the  dull  glow  of 
English  wrath.  The  recruiting  goes  more 
swiftly;  a  number  of  young  men  have 
gone  from  our  village  in  the  last  few  days ; 
the  blacksmith's  shop  is  closed,  and  the 
forge  fire  is  out,  —  he  has  gone  to  work 
in  a  munition  factory.  We  who  stay  are 
knitting  for  the  trenches  and  sewing  for 
the  hospitals;  I  never  dreamed  that  I 
should  live  to  know  such  human  anguish 
and  human  want,  —  yet  it  is  good  to  learn 
that  one  need  not  stand  alone,  bearing  the 
pain  of  life  in  solitude.  I  have  joined 
every  possible  relief  association  and  have 
pledged  almost  my  uttermost  penny.  We 
144 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

are  even  selling  eggs  for  the  hospital 
funds;  spite  of  cold  weather,  the  Ma 
tildas,  Queen  Elizabeth,  Queen  Anne,  and 
Queen  Victoria  are  rising  magnificently 
to  the  crisis.  The  London  people  are 
using  the  house  occasionally  as  a  tempo 
rary  shelter  for  one  or  two  people  at  a 
time  before  permanent  places  are  found 
for  them.  The  Inn  also  serves  for  this, 
and  mine  hostess  and  I  have  many  a 
conference;  fortunately,  in  the  haste  and 
confusion,  some  of  the  bric-a-brac  is  get 
ting  broken;  one  alabaster  vase  and  one 
glass  case  covering  artificial  flowers  have 
disappeared. 

Madge  has  amused  me  by  finding  a 
way  to  express,  in  rather  original  fashion, 
her  deepening  sympathy  with  humankind 
A  courting  is  going  on  in  our  kitchen; 
every  Friday  night  tin-  lovers  come,  she 
from  the  village-,  IK-  from  a  farm  lying 
lu-yond  the  Hall;  and  every  Friday  night 
Madge  either  goes  to  bed  early,  or 
145 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

out  to  see  her  friends.  The  girl  is  a  coun 
try  lass  rather  ill-treated  by  a  mistress 
who  shall  be  nameless;  she  has  no  place 
to  receive  her  lover,  save  the  stone  wall  of 
the  bridge  across  the  stream.  She  steals 
here  in  the  dusk  on  her  one  free  evening; 
why  not?  The  young  man  is  a  perfectly 
suitable  wooer,  and  they  are  safer  in  my 
kitchen  than  out  in  the  cold.  Yet  I  admit 
that  I  feel  a  bit  guilty  when  I  very  form 
ally  return  the  very  formal  greeting  of 
the  unconscious  mistress. 

Just  now,  no  one  is  staying  with  us, 
and  there  is  blessed  quiet.  Through  the 
silences  in  the  little  house,  old  moods,  old 
laughter,  old  half -merry  tears  come  back; 
you  blend  with  all  my  days.  Sometimes 
I  feel,  not  as  at  first,  that  this  is  the  end 
of  things  for  me,  but  as  if  it  were  a  little 
truce  of  God  while  I  am  waiting.  To-day 
I  found  my  first  grey  hairs;  there  were 
two,  one  on  each  temple;  have  you  any  to 
match  them,  I  wonder?  Ah,  I  keep  for- 
146 


THK    \VOKX    DOORSTEP 

feting,  forgetting;  keep  thinking  of  you 
as  still  alive  and  suffering  in  this  war. 
Remembering,  I  envy  you;  the  many 
years  ahead  look  formidable. 

Do  you  remember  the  day  we  took  our 
fifteen-mile  walk  from  Oxford  in  May, 
and  sat  to  rest  on  the  flat  grey  stones  in 
an  old,  old  village  churchyard,  with  a 
tangle  of  wild  vines  at  our  feet,  and  prim 
roses  and  violets  blossoming  near,  —  do 
you  remember  that  we  talked  of  immor 
tality  and  decided  that  when  one  died  it 
was  death,  that  having  lived  was  enough? 
At  least  you  did;  I  always  had  u  ma  doots 
o'  ma  doots."  I  think  it  was  just  May 
that  made  us  feel  that  way, — the  fra 
grances,  the  bird  songs,  the  sun-flecked 
clouds  over  the  Cumnor  Hills:  you  too 
were  far  more  influenced  by  things  out 
side  the  world  of  pure  thought  than  you 
ev«  knew,  my  philosopher:  have  I  not 
u  you  mistaking  a  sunbeam  for  an  op 
timistic  s\  Holism  '.  We  doubted,  dear,  but 
147 


THE    WORN   DOORSTEP 

we  were  wrong;  you  do  not  die;  you  are 
more  intensely  alive  than  ever. 

I  am  stealing  a  little  time  to  try  to  do 
a  portrait  of  you,  though  it  is  long  since 
I  have  had  a  brush  in  my  hand ;  you  know 
that  I  was  something  but  not  much  of  an 
artist.  What  were  the  half-gifts  meant 
for,  I  wonder,  all  the  aspiration  that  goes 
into  them,  the  denied  hope?  I  used  to 
suffer  because  I  could  not  create  the 
things  I  saw  and  dreamed,  but  that  kind 
of  suffering  has  vanished  utterly,  —  life 
flows  out  in  so  many  ways.  There's  a  bit 
of  attic  with  a  north  light  near  the  Atom's 
lair  that  I  have  fitted  up  as  a  studio,  and 
I  have  unpacked  there  my  easel  and  can 
vases.  To-day  I  shut  myself  up  and  be 
gan  my  portrait  of  you,  merely  sketching, 
for  the  outlines  blurred.  I  had  a  curious 
experience.  So  clear  is  my  inner  vision  of 
you  that  it  blinded  my  eyes,  and  that 
which  was  in  my  mind  a  perfect  picture 
would  prove,  if  I  left  the  room  and  came 
148 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

back  to  look  at  it  afresh,  a  set  of  meaning 
less  lines. 

December  30.  For  three  days  I  tried 
and  tried  in  vain ;  then  came  sudden  suc 
cess,  for  your  very  mouth  half  smiled  at 
me  from  the  canvas  where  I  had  been  put 
ting  random  strokes.  As  I  work,  I  feel 
that  I  never  before  really  knew  you; 
deeper  understanding  comes  to  me  of  your 
doubts,  your  resolutions,  your  long 
growth,  and  what  you  are.  Little  things 
long  forgotten  come  drifting  back,  con 
cerning  your  boyhood  in  the  old  rectory, 
the  hard  awakening  of  an  English  public 
school.  Chance  remarks  that  you  made 
carelessly  long  ago  waken  in  memory  and 
reveal  you  to  me  anew.  The  first  time  I 
realized  the  depth  of  feeling  within  you 
was  when  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  you  lis 
tening  to  music  at  a  concert  in  the  Sheldo- 
nian  theatre;  once,  at  least,  your  over- 
guarded  face  betrayed  the  real  you.  I 
149 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

learned  to  know  your  quiet  sympathy, 
your  concealed  sensitive  understanding  of 
the  needs  of  humankind,  and  to  compre 
hend  your  difficulty  in  showing  it,  making 
it  available.  You  built  up  the  excluding 
barrier  of  an  Englishman's  expression 
between  you  and  the  world ;  only  animals 
and  children  dared  break  through.  I  can 
see  them  yet  rubbing  their  fuzzy  heads 
against  you,  from  the  big  Angora  at 
Greyfriars,  to  little  Lady  Matilda  at 
Witton  Hall. 

December  31.  I  cannot  finish  this  por 
trait,  for  the  eyes  baffle  me,  and  each  time 
I  try  you  seem  to  be  looking  at  me  ap- 
pralingly,  as  if  you  wanted  me  to  express 
something  that  I  but  dimly  see.  My  pres 
ent  knowledge  of  you  seems  in  some 
strange  way  to  outstrip  your  remembered 
face.  My  sketch-  for  T  shall  leave  it  a 
mere  sketch  —  suggests  all  your  suffer 
ing  and  all  my  sorrow,  and  yet  not  all  is 
150 


TIIK    \\OKX    DOORSTEP 

said.  What  knowledge  have  you  now 
that  I  do  not  share?  Tell  it  very  gently 
in  the  quiet,  and  I  shall  know;  am  I  not 
always  listening?  I  am  hungry  for  your 
wisdom  of  death. 

January  12,  1915.  Deepening  cold 
drives  us  all  closer  to  the  hearth;  perhaps 
it  is  only  in  winter  that  one  gets  the  full 
flavour  of  home.  Don  curls  up  by  the  fire 
with  me,  or  takes  glorious  cross-country 
walks.  The  little  old  gingerbread  woman 
of  the  lych  gate  has  disappeared;  I  half 
suspect  her  of  crawling  temporarily  into 
one  of  the  graves  to  keep  warm.  In  snug 
farmyards,  by  great  sunny  ricks  of  hay, 
the  eattle  of  the  countryside  shelter  them 
selves  contentedly.  Xow,  even  more  than 
in  summer,  this  land  seems  home  from  end 
to  end;  in  every  nook  and  corner  is  some 
thing  of  the  appeal  of  the  fireside;  no 
other  country  so  suggests  from  shore  to 
shore  one  great  threshold  and  hearth.  Its 
151 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

churchyards,  with  their  dead  softly 
tucked  in,  the  comforting  grass  above ;  its 
low-roofed  villages;  its  individual  homes 
in  their  great  loveliness  wear  one  expres 
sion. 

There  are  wonderful  sunsets  over  the 
brown  earth  or  white  snow.  This  is  that 
England  on  whose  domain  the  sun  never 
sets,  yet  it  sets  most  exquisitely  day  by 
day,  did  they  but  know. 

For  a  week  we  had  with  us  a  little  nun, 
who  prayed  and  prayed,  looking  about 
her  with  big,  frightened  eyes.  Luckily, 
my  acquaintance  with  His  Reverence,  who 
officiated  at  Marie's  wedding,  solved  the 
problem,  and  she  went  gladly  to  the  shel 
ter  of  a  convent  roof.  Then  for  a  few 
days  we  cared  for  an  old,  old  man,  who 
swore  and  swore,  softly,  constantly,  but 
with  an  air  of  question,  as  if  no  oaths  could 
quite  meet  the  need  of  the  present  mo 
ment.  It  was  most  incongruous,  for  he 
was  very  evidently  a  gentleman,  and  he 
152 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

very  evidently  thought  that  he  was  ex 
pressing  himself  politely,  even  if  inade 
quately.  My  knowledge  of  the  French 
language  was  greatly  extended,  but  this 
new  vocabulary  is,  alas!  as  unavailable  for 
the  uses  of  ordinary  life  as  that  which  I 
learned  from  Corneille!  Our  fugitive  was 
a  most  pathetic  old  creature  whose  mind 
had  been  somewhat  unsettled  by  suffering 
and  exile.  Fortunately  a  relative  of  his 
was  discovered,  a  prosperous  Belgian 
merchant  living  in  the  outskirts  of  Lon 
don,  and  my  guest  bade  me  a  profane  but 
grateful  farewell.  A  few  days'  care 
seems  but  little  to  offer  these  flitting 
guests  on  their  sorrowful  journey,  but  it 
is  a  great  relief  to  me  to  do  even  this  little, 
and  as  each  one  goes,  I  feel  like  saying 
"  Thank  you!  "  as  the  well-trained  British 
waiter  says  when  you  deign  to  take  some- 
tin  Tig  from  the  offered  plate. 

We  really  need  Peter's  advice,  —  think 
of   that:     Peter's    advice,    which    I   have 
158 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

scorned  to  take!  In  our  zeal  we  became 
victims  of  one  bit  of  imposture,  which, 
however,  did  not  involve  us  in  irretrievable 
loss,  —  only  spoons!  Two  dark-skinned 
folk  presented  themselves  one  cold,  wintry 
day  when  all  the  desolation  of  the  earth 
seemed  dripping  down  in  icy  rain.  They 
asked  for  food,  telling  us  that  they  were 
Belgian  refugees  in  need  of  help;  evi 
dently  the  habits  of  this  household  have 
been  rumoured  abroad.  We  were  a  bit 
suspicious,  but  resolved  to  err  upon  the 
right  side.  While  Madge  was  cooking  and 
I  had  gone  to  order  fresh  supplies,  they  de 
camped  with  my  spoons  and  my  purse, 
luckily  a  very  lean  purse.  Don  had 
simply  absented  himself;  he  no  longer 
trusts  his  instincts,  finding  himself  in 

a   world    whose    standards   he    does   not 

f 

comprehend.  The  old  order  changes,  giv 
ing  place  to  new;  old  caste  distinctions 
are  ignored,  and  he  has  not  as  yet  had  time 
to  learn  new  mental  habits.  He  has  found 
154 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

for  himself  a  little  agnostic  den  in  a  cor 
ner  behind  the  kitchen  range,  and  he  goes 
there  when  he  cannot  make  up  his  mind. 
When  we  discovered  our  loss  and  began 
our  search,  he  came  out  wagging  his  tail 
with  a  self-congratulatory  air  to  say,  "  I 
told  you  so!  "  But  he  had  not  told  us  so; 
he  had  only  deserted  us  when  we  needed 
him  most.  Our  light-fingered  guests  have 
been  found  in  a  gypsy  tribe  passing 
through  to  the  north,  but  my  spoons  have 
not  been  found.  Must  I  lap  my  supper 
from  a  saucer  with  Don  and  the  Atom? 

January  19.  As  I  sit  by  the  fire  and 
toast  my  toes  in  my  few  minutes  of 
blessed  idle  ness,  I  cannot  help  living  over 
old  days  and  hours,  and  I  see  again  the 
dusk  of  that  evening  when  you  and  your 
family  escorted  me  to  Tlinksey  to  hear  the 
nightingales;  the  sunshine  of  that  after 
noon  when  you  and  I  searched  in  vain  the 
meadows  beyond  lifley  for  pink-tipped 
155 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

English  daisies.  Often  I  find  myself 
again  arguing  things  out  with  you,  even 
getting  a  bit  angry  now  and  then,  for 
getting  that  you  cannot  answer.  Many 
and  many  a  dispute  we  had,  many  and 
many  a  disagreement,  with  the  invariable 
outcome  of  deeper  understanding. 

Sometimes  the  unshared  jests  hurt  most 
of  all;  what  has  become  of  your  humour, 
dear,  that  rare,  dry  humour  that  betrayed 
itself  most  plainly  in  your  eyes?  When 
first  I  knew  you,  I  thought  that  you  had 
no  sense  of  humour;  I  soon  found  that  it 
was  deeper  than  my  own,  because  of  your 
insight  into  the  irony  of  the  human  pre 
dicament.  At  times  it  touched  the  tragic. 
I  learned  to  understand  your  quiet  enjoy 
ment  in  watching  people,  your  wordless 
jests,  and  the  silent  drollery  of  your  half 
smile.  How  you  loved  to  tease  me  about 
the  foibles  of  my  countrymen. 

"  Xo  other  people,"  you  would  say, 
"  would  come  dashing  into  the  courtyard 
156 


THE    WOKX    DOORSTEP 

of  a  French  hotel,  with  flags  flying  from 
the  carriage,  singing  their  national  hymn 
at  the  top  of  their  voices ;  no  other  people 
would  motor  swiftly  to  the  entrance  of  a 
French  cathedral,  crying  out : '  You  do  the 
inside,  and  we'll  do  the  outside,  and  it 
won't  take  us  more  than  five  minutes!' 
And  there  is  always  the  pleasing  memory 
of  the  lady  from  Montana  who  deplored 
the  inadequacy  of  the  Louvre  because  the 
pictures  couldn't  compare  with  the  exhibi 
tion  that  they  had  had  in  the  winter  at 
Wilkins  Bluff.  But  of  course  this  repre 
sents  a  class  of  Americans  that  you  would 
not  know." 

That  was  the  day  we  had  tea  by  the 
river;  I  was  hot  with  helping  you  get  the 
1'oat  past  the  lock,  hot  with  making  the 
tea,  and  I  £>re\v  hotter  still. 

"  I  admit  that  we  are  vulgar,  and  loud- 
voiced,    and    ostentatious,"    I    told    you; 
"but  we  aren't  selfish,  and  we  aren't  in 
solent.     On  the  contrary,   we  are  usually 
157 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

quixotically  good-natured  and  generous. 
We  do  not  look  in  blank  surprise  as  the 
British  do  if  any  one  questions  their 
right  to  be  served  before  all  other  people 
with  the  choicest  of  everything.  You  have 
little  idea  of  what  we  suffer  who  meet 
many  of  the  travelling  English  of  to-day, 
with  their  quiet  and  total  selfishness  in 
securing  and  sitting  upon  all  that  is  best. 
Of  course,  this  represents  a  class  of  the 
English  that  you  would  not  know."  This 
you  forgave,  but  you  never  quite  forgave, 
I  fear,  my  wicked  suggestion  that  the 
moat  about  the  Bishop's  palace  was  pre 
served  in  order  to  keep  out  the  poor  and 
needy. 

But  the  things  about  which  we  quar 
relled  were  only  surface  things;  I  knew 
and  loved  my  England  more  than  I  ever 
admitted  to  you;  and  you,  for  all  your 
criticism  of  my  countrymen  (much  of  it 
was  abundantly  justified) ,  had  divined  the 
spirit  of  idealism  in  our  democracy.  The 
158 


THE    WORN     DOOKSTKP 

development  of  the  individual  in  righteous 
freedom  for  you,  as  for  us,  was  the  great 
hope  of  the  world.  Under  all  the  crude- 
ness  of  America,  under  the  arrogance  of 
England,  lives,  and  has  lived  from  earliest 
days,  a  something  great  and  fine,  shared 
by  republican  France,  —  a  passion  for 
liberty.  The  little  things  do  not  matter  if 
the  great  convictions  at  the  heart  of  na 
tions  are  akin;  have  not  people  of  late 
cared  too  much  about  little  things?  If 
our  two  peoples  become  aware  of  the 
greatness  of  their  common  destiny,  will 
they  not  stop  fussing  about  the  American 
accent  and  English  incivility?  As  I  walk 
alone  nowadays,  I  try  to  drive  this  haunt 
ing,  insistent  world-suffering  from  my 
mind  by  dreams  of  a  great  future-  wherein 
your  country  and  mine  go  hand  in  hand, 
helping  secure  for  all  time  liberty  for  the 
human  race. 

Each  has  something  to  contribute  that 
the  other  lacks.     I  really  think  that  we, 
159 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

in  our  sense  of  the  dignity  of  the  individ 
ual  man,  in  willingness  to  forego  shades 
and  differences  of  taste  for  the  sake  of 
something  greater,  have  outgrown  you. 
You,  with  your  keen  insight,  had  divined 
the  need  of  democracy,  had  accepted  it 
in  theory,  but  found  the  inevitable  conse 
quences  hard  to  accept.  Nothing  is  more 
agreeable  than  good  taste;  perhaps  there 
are  things  more  profoundly  important. 
Dare  I  say  that  I  think  we  have  out 
stripped  you  in  generosity  of  act  and  of 
thought  ? 

But  you  are  greater  than  we,  and  your 
life  runs  in  deeper  channels  than  our  own, 
in  that  you  keep  faith  with  the  past,  re 
fusing  to  let  the  hard-won  spiritual 
achievement  of  the  race  be  swept  away  by 
the  externalism  of  the  present.  To  you, 
as  to  no  other  people,  we  look  to  save  the 
world  from  the  terrible  material  forces, 
without  conscience,  without  insight,  which 
threaten  to  dominate  the  whole  of  life. 
160 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

You  who  refuse  to  give  up  fine  standards 
of  an  elder  day  are  the  influence  that  we 
of  America  greatly  need,  for  in  matters 
intellectual,  we  are  all  too  prone  to  be  led, 
and  have  been  too  much  cowed  by  this 
later  Germany  —  who  forgets. 

February  1.  We  are  living  on,  as  best 
we  may,  through  cold  and  thaw  and  cold 
again.  The  horror  of  that  January  night, 
when  human  beings  and  birds  wakened, 
with  fear  dropping  from  the  sky,  when 
innocent  women  and  children  were  killed 
by  bombs  from  German  Zeppelins,  lin 
gers  and  OTOWS  deeper.  The  tension  was 
greatest  for  those  who  could  not  hear 
what  the  birds  heard,  but  listened  to  the 
great  outcry  of  blackbirds,  pheasants,  and 
other  winged  things,  to  the  loud  cawing  of 
the  rooks,  and  wondered  and  wraited  in 
nameless  anguish.  There  seems  to  be  no 
refuge  in  earth  or  sky  or  sea.  Can  this 
world  of  shot  and  shell  and  eon<juering 
161 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

chemicals  be  that  world  that  was  so  beau 
tiful,  and  that  suddenly  seemed  so 
strangely  safe  when  you  came  into  my 
life? 

March  10.  Such  days  of  excitement 
and  of  strain!  My  little  house  has  per 
formed  its  supreme  service,  —  has  shel 
tered  a  body,  while  the  soul  was  going  out. 

It  began  three  days  ago;  I  was  walk 
ing  down  the  village  street  with  Don  at 
my  heels,  when  I  noticed  a  large  touring 
car  at  the  Inn,  with  a  group  of  people 
very  much  excited,  gesticulating  and  talk 
ing  with  a  vehemence  that  usually  means 
Latin  blood.  Mine  hostess  of  the  Inn 
was  running  to  and  from  the  car  with  bot 
tles  and  flannel  cloths;  turpentine  on 
warm  flannel  is  her  cure  for  every  human 
ailment.  Then  I  saw  in  the  car  an  old, 
old  lady  —  quite  ill,  evidently  —  leaning 
heavily  on  the  shoulder  of  a  younger 
woman.  I  shall  not  soon  forget  the  look 
162 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

of  that  grey-white  face  under  the  snow- 
white  hair  and  hlack  widow's  bonnet,  set 
in  a  group  of  strange  faces,  among  which 
I  remember  one  of  a  little  boy,  watching 
breathlessly  with  his  mouth  wide  open, 
and  a  smaller  girl,  staring  apathetically 
with  her  eyes  full  of  tears  that  looked  as 
if  they  had  long  been  there.  I  did  not 
need  to  be  told  that  this  oddly-assorted 
set  of  people  were  refugees.  I  had  seen 
too  many  utter  strangers,  from  diverse 
surroundings,  hastily  gathered  together, 
clad  in  velvet,  clad  in  rags,  to  share  one 
suffering. 

I  found  that  they  were  being  taken 
from  London,  where  they  had  been  cared 
for  for  many  weeks,  to  different  destina 
tions  in  the  northern  counties,  but  the 
man  in  charge  had  evidently  lost  his  way 
and  was  making  an  unnecessary  detour 
toward  the  coast.  He  could  not  speak 
their  language,  nor  they  his,  and  he 
seemed  entirely  at  a  loss  in  this  dilemma. 
!<;:* 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

Oh,  the  loneliness,  and  the  desolation,  and 
the  bitter  shame  of  it  all ! 

"  The  old  lady's  took  ill,  of  a  sudden, 
'm,"  said  the  landlady,  stopping  her  little 
trot  near  me. 

I  asked  the  younger  woman,  whose  face 
was  very  kindly,  if  this  was  her  mother, 
but  she  shook  her  head. 

'  I  don't  know  who  she  is;  I  never  saw 
her  until  we  started." 

Then  I  begged  and  pleaded ;  the  chauf 
feur  looked  greatly  relieved,  and  so  did 
mine  hostess,  though  she  remonstrated 
that  it  would  be  quite  too  much  for  me. 

"Are  you  sure,  Miss,  that  you  want 
her?  We  don't  know  what  it  is;  it  may 
be  contagious." 

:<  I  don't  care  what  it  is!  "  I  said  so  sud 
denly  that  Don  barked  out;  there  was  a 
little  feeling  of  joy  within  me  at  the 
thought  that  there  might  be  danger;  it  is 
hard  to  be  shut  out  from  the  great  danger 
that  circles  the  world. 
164 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

So  the  big  touring  car  was  turned 
about,  with  much  puffing  and  panting;  my 
little  iron  gate  was  opened  wide  to  let  two 
men  carry  the  poor  old  creature  to  my 
guest  room,  and  I  sent  the  others  on,  with 
such  comforts  as  I  could  supply.  The 
small  boy  went  nibbling  a  cookie,  the  little 
girl  with  hers  in  her  hand,  too  dazed  to 
eat  it.  Haven't  you  ever  seen  a  frightened 
little  bird  holding  something  in  its  mouth, 
not  daring  to  swallow? 

The  village  doctor  and  Madge  and  I 
worked  for  hours  over  the  fugitive.  She 
only  looked  at  us  with  eyes  that  had  in 
them  all  the  weariness  of  the  world  since 
the  dawn  of  time.  There  was  evidently 
no  malady;  actual  physical  pain  did  not 
seem  to  be  there;  only  overwhelming 
mental  pain  or  shock  that  means  destruc 
tion  of  the  very  forces  of  life.  She  was 
not  unconscious,  nor  was  she  fully  con 
scious  <>f  what  was  tu<  in(_r  <>n  around  her. 
The  comfort  of  warm  water  on  her  body, 
L60 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

the  comfort  of  soothing  drink  she  hardly 
realized,  nor  could  she  swallow,  except 
with  great  difficulty  and  reluctance.  Just 
once  she  stretched  herself  out  at  full 
length  with  a  look  of  relief,  and  lay  mo 
tionless. 

I  shall  never  know  what  weary  ways 
she  had  trodden  in  her  escape  from  the 
swift  ruin  of  war,  nor  how  in  her  tottering 
age  she  had  escaped  at  all.  She  seemed 
to  be  one  who,  her  life  long,  had  walked 
the  same  peaceful  paths  over  and  over,  as 
her  forefathers  had  done  before.  Was  she 
one  of  those  who,  driven  from  home  and 
fireside,  had  lain  down  in  the  dust  of  the 
road,  longing  to  die?  Contagious! 
Heartbreak  does  seem  contagious  in  these 
days;  who  shall  escape?  Who  can  wish 
to,  when  other  hearts  break? 

Life  can  never  bring  me  anything  so 
strange,  perhaps  it  can  never  bring  me 
anything  so  wonderful,  as  this  silent  com 
panionship  with  a  soul  that  had  almost 
166 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

passed.  She  did  not  understand  the 
words  I  used,  hut  she  did  understand  that 
we  were  trying  to  help  her;  though  her 
lips  were  still,  her  eyes  followed  us,  - 
eyes  full  of  knowledge  that  can  not  come 
before  the  last.  She  did  not  try  to  thank 
us,  dwelling  in  some  world  of  instinctive 
understanding,  making  one  feel  that  the 
long  ages  of  much  speaking  were  folly. 
She  had  let  go  of  all  tangible  things  and 
was  no  longer  aware  of  time  or  circum 
stance;  there  was  no  look  of  fear  in  her 
eyes,  no  look  of  sorrow;  she  was  done 
with  earth  and  with  feeling,  having 
neither  reproaches  nor  regrets.  She  had 
gone  beyond  pain,  beyond  joy,  beyond 
those  simple  human  affections  that  linger 
to  the  last,  to  some  region  of  ultimate 
peace,  or  of  quiet  beyond  peace. 

The  falling  of  March  rain  upon  the 
roof;    sunshine,  with  the  notes  of  the  re 
turning  birds;    the  cawing  of  the  rooks, 
and  the  soft  ripple  of  the  brook  —  even 
1C7 


THE    WORX    DOORSTEP 

Madge  was  subdued  by  the  majesty  of  it 
all  and  forgot  to  rail  at  the  Kaiser,  or  to 
storm  in  misplaced  aspirates  at  the  Ger 
mans.  A  world  beyond  hate  was  with  us, 
where  it  was  good  to  be. 

The  end  was  hardly  different  from  the 
days  that  went  before;  there  was  no  mo 
tion,  no  outburst,  only  a  quiet  ceasing  of 
that  which  had  hardly  been  breathing. 
Our  departing  guest  folded  her  wrinkled 
hands  upon  her  breast  herself,  as  if  to 
save  us  trouble,  and  so  I  found  her.  Who 
was  she?  Who  belonged  to  her?  Where 
are  the  children  and  grandchildren  who 
should  have  been  gathered  about  her  bed? 

The  doctor  and  the  village  nurse  took 
charge  of  her;  when  she  was  ready  for 
burial,  more  quiet  than  earth  itself,  —  one 
never  knows  quiet  until  one  sees  it  so,  - 
I  put  roses  beside  her;  one  of  the  county 
ladies  keeps  me  supplied  from  her  con 
servatory.  Yet  I  hesitated;  it  seemed 
wrong  to  recall  in  this  presence  any  mere 
168 


THE    WORN   DOORSTEP 

tangible  and  visible  beauty,  or  aught  from 
the  \\orld  of  things.  The  lovely  contours 
and  outlines,  the  perfume  of  the  roses 
reproached  me,  as  if  I  were  pursuing  her 
to  bring  her  back  to  mere  self,  hampering 
her  escape.  With  her  we  seemed  to  be 
swept  away  into  some  great  consciousness 
that  meant  relief  from  individual  sorrow, 
-  sharing  her  rest,  a  repose  so  deep  that 
it  rested  us  for  all  the  days  to  come. 

Madge  mourned  over  her  as  if  it  were 
her  own  mother,  —  I  hardly  know  why: 
could  it  have  been  merely  the  three  days 
of  trying  to  care  for  her?  Or  was  she 
touched,  in  some  depth  of  her  nature 
never  reached  before,  by  the  grandeur  of 
that  loneliness? 

There  was  a  brief  service  in  the  little 
church  on  the  hill,  a  sound  of  song,  of 
praying:  but  nothing  in  the  burial  service 
could  quite  express  the  pathos  of  that  mo- 
nunt  when  we  buried  some  one's  mother, 
not  even  knowing  her  name.  We  left  her 
169 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

in  the  churchyard,  within  hearing  of  the 
stream,  where  deep  shadows  fall  on  grave 
after  grave.  This  cold  winter  grass  which 
grows  above  the  other  graves  will  soon, 
with  the  quickening  of  spring,  cover  hers 
also;  already  it  is  freshening,  and  cro 
cuses  peep  out  here  and  there. 

There  is  no  name  to  put  on  a  stone  at 
her  head.  It  is  perhaps  at  best  folly  to 
mark  the  resting-places  of  the  dead,  yet  I 
had  a  feeling  that  no  token  of  respect 
must  be  lacking,  and  I  begged  that  an 
old  grey  tombstone,  standing  by  the 
churchyard  wall,  a  stone  so  old  that  all 
that  was  carved  on  it  has  been  worn  away, 
might  be  placed  at  her  head.  It  has  told 
the  passing  of  one  human  soul,  and  shall 
tell  that  of  another;  in  its  grey,  fine- 
worn  beauty  it  symbolizes  the  vast  imper 
sonality  of  the  end. 

I  come  here  now  even  oftener  than  I 
used.  Surely  death  has  never  appeared 
so  gentle,  so  much  a  member  of  the  fam- 
170 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

ily,  as  in  these  English  churchyards  with 
their  sweet  hoininess.  It  seems  fitting 
that  we  meet  "  My  sister,  the  Death  of 
the  Body  "  on  these  grass-grown  paths 
which  wear  a  look  of  every  day  and  com 
mon  happenings.  The  little  river,  the 
lichen-grown  stones,  the  sense  of  long 
continuance,  give  one  a  feeling  that  there 
are  no  gaps,  no  fissures  between  life  and 
death,  that  the  sight  of  the  eyes  slips  in 
evitably  into  the  vision  of  the  soul.  The 
sky  seems  near  in  England,  with  the 
crumbling  grey  of  old  Xorman  tower  and 
churchyard  wall  touching  its  veiled  blue, 
and  the  low  white  clouds  almost  within 
reach;  the  old  home-like  look  of  the  flat 
stones  makes  one  feel  as  if  the  sleepers 
are  still,  as  it  were,  sitting  on  the  thresh 
old,  or  on  the  old  bench  by  the  door. 
There  is  no  sense  of  distance  or  separa 
tion,  no  feeling  of  far  away. 

It    is   not  sad  to  leave  her  here,  now 
when  the  whole  earth  seems  one  great 
171 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

family  of  the  sorrowing,  where  the  chil 
dren  and  the  grandchildren  of  many  other 
folk  are  so  near. 

May  20.  Spring,  with  the  thawing  of 
the  icicles,  and  the  sunshine  growing 
warmer  on  the  southern  wall  of  the  house, 
-spring  comes  back  in  the  old  and 
lovely  way  to  a  world  never  in  such  an 
guish  before.  What  an  April,  to  bring 
the  cowardly  murder  of  soldiers  in  the 
trenches  by  volumes  of  poisonous  gasl 
What  a  May,  to  bring  the  L/us-itania 
massacre  of  hundreds  of  innocent  men, 
women,  and  children  at  sea!  What  a 
Germany,  quite,  quite  mad: 

"  O  what  a  noble  mind  is  here  o'erthrown, 
The  soldier's,  scholar's  — 

but  I  am  not  quoting  correctly  and  am  too 
busy  to  look  up  the  lines.  I  dare  not 
even  try  to  speak  of  my  sense  of  these 
things;  words  are  lacking  to  express  it, 
172 


THE    WORN    DOORSTKP 

but  surely  this  marks  the  parting  of  the 
ways.  To  me  it  seems  that  the  time  has 
come  for  the  nations  of  the  earth  —  would 
that  my  own  would  join  them  —  to  band 
together  once  more  in  a  holy  crusade  and 
do  battle  with  the  Pagan,  not  for  the 
tomb  of  our  Lord,  but  for  the  faith  He 
taught. 

As  time  goes  on,  I  see  more  clearly 
what  the  real  England  stands  for.  My 
mind  works  slowly,  for  I  am  but  a  prac- 
tieal  American;  it  isn't  as  if  I  were  a 
thinker  like  yourself,  who  could  reason 
things  out  on  purely  intellectual  grounds. 
The  war  between  my  great  love  of  Eng 
land  and  my  indignant  sense  of  things 
that  are  wrong  gives  way  to  something 
more  impersonal*  as  I  have  more  chance 
to  see  the  way  in  which  her  customs  serve 
humanity.  Complete  fulfillment  of  her 
great  purposes  has  not  yet  been  achieve  d. 
yet  surely  the  human  race  has  got  no 
further:  liberty  for  the  individual,  fair 
173 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

play,  —  these  watchwords  of  England 
are  the  hope  of  the  human  race.  What 
other  land  could  rule  many  alien  peoples 
and  make  them  so  proudly  content?  As 
England  has  kept  faith  with  the  past,  she 
has,  barring  some  great  mistakes,  kept 
faith  with  humanity.  The  recent  magnif 
icent  bravery  of  the  Canadians  in  the  bat 
tles  with  flaming  gas  only  intensifies  the 
splendour  of  the  voluntary  tribute  of  Eng 
land's  colonies  to  England  in  distress. 
Earth  has  not  seen  the  like  of  this  empire 
resting  on  the  will  of  man ;  from  the  four 
quarters  of  the  globe,  Canada,  Australia, 
Xew  Zealand,  India,  they  come  sailing 
swiftly  home,  counting  it  great  gain  to 
die  for  that  for  which  she  stands.  It 
means  that  at  the  heart  of  England  is 
something  too  precious  to  lose,  a  faith  in 
the  working  possibility  of  human  freedom. 
Crude  races,  races  old  and  outworn,  need 
to  learn  at  her  feet  the  practical  way  of 
making  good  this  immemorial  hope  of  the 
174 


TIIK    WORN     DOOKSTKP 

race.  Under  her  rule,  the  individual  lias 
his  chance  of  self-government;  if  he  fails 
to  take  it,  falling  into  the  net  of  sloth  and 
old  habit  as  he  often  does  in  England,  the 
fault  is  his  own.  His  individual  con 
science  is  left  him ;  he  is  not  compelled  to 
become  a  soulless  cog  in  a  gigantic  con 
scienceless  mechanism. 

I  do  not  care  what  Mr.  Asquith  has 
done  wrong;  what  Mr.  Joseph  Chamber 
lain  did  wrong;  what  King  George  the 
Third  and  all  the  Georges  have  done  or 
failed  to  do:  I  trust  this  people  as  I  trust 
no  other.  Guilty  of  sins  and  blunders 
they  may  be  and  are,  but  the  blunder  is 
followed  by  the  honest  effort  to  find  again 
and  do  the  right;  you  come  down  always 
to  a  groundwork  of  character,  sincerity, 
integrity.  England  has  been  in  a  way  the 
conscience  of  the  world.  What  other 
race-name  is  a  word  to  conjure  with?  All 
over  the  earth  where  confusion  COMICS,  it 
i*  whispered:  "The  troubles  are  dying 
175 


THE   WORN   DOORSTEP 

down;  the  English  are  drawing  near." 
And  in  the  councils  of  the  world,  her  voice 
has  been  the  great  arbiter  of  right  and 
wrong. 

No  one  here  now  can  doubt  that  Eng 
land  is  going  through  that  great  anguish 
wherein  the  soul  of  a  people  is  re-born. 
The  unity,  the  calm,  the  quickening  deter 
mination  are  part  of  a  great  spring-time 
that  will  lead,  God  grant,  to  harvest  days 
of  peace.    There  is  slow  knitting  up  of  the 
sinews  of  war;   more  and  more  her  sons 
respond  to  the  call  which  still  leaves  them 
free  to  choose;    old  England  is  getting 
ready  as  ever,  resolved,  incredulous  of  de 
feat;    the   spring  knows   it;    the   rooks 
know  it,  busy  in  their  elm  tree  parliament. 
The  great  sorrow  and  the  great  endeavour 
have  turned  the  very  soil  of  the  country 
into  holy  ground.    Among  my  bonfires  of 
spring,  —  for  I  like  to  keep  that  old,  re 
ligious  rite  of  purification,  —  I  burned 
half  a  dozen  volumes  of  recent  English 
176 


THE    WORN   DOORSTEP 

fiction,  decadent,  erotic;  a  volume  or  two 
of  flippant  and  sensational  criticism;  and 
one  of  affected  futurist  poetry,  or  some 
brand  like  unto  it.  They  belong  to  the 
England  whose  follies  and  foibles  are  be 
ing  burned  in  a  great  fire  of  affliction;  they 
are  not  worthy  of  this  great  England 
that  is  emerging  from  the  flame. 

As  I  write,  the  tinkle  of  the  English 
sheep  bells  from  afar  comes  like  the  very 
sound  of  peace. 

February,  with  the  vanishing  of  the  ici 
cles,  brought  snowdrops  and  crocuses.  All 
kinds  of  growing  things  of  which  I  had 
not  dreamed  came  peeping  up  in  this  old 
garden:  crocuses,  purple  and  gold,  grow 
in  a  little  clump  where  the  wind  just  fails 
to  reach  them;  royal  daffodils  nod  and 
sway,  or  stand  erect  and  golden,  those 
from  new  planting  outshining  the  rest. 
In  March  the  violets  were  out,  and  prim- 
fnllowed;  the  pony's  meadow  is  full 
of  tlu  in.  t!eep  in  the  grass;  and  these  are 
177 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

only  a  part  of  the  lovely  procession  of 
flowers,  —  bluebells,  anemones,  and  un 
numbered  others. 

To  me  it  seemed  that  the  birds  came 
very  early,  —  birds  that  are  strangers  to 
me,  birds  that  I  know ;  and  we  were  glad 
once  more  in  the  companionship  of  wings. 
I  was  thankful  when  the  swallows  came, 
circling,  flying  high,  flying  low;  wrens, 
old  friends  of  mine,  are  building  under  my 
porch  roof;  a  merry  little  blue  tit,  a 
friend  quite  new,  disports  himself  among 
the  leaves.  I  have  heard  the  cuckoo  call 
ing,  calling  beyond  the  stream ;  you  were 
the  first  to  tell  me  that  this  was  the 
cuckoo's  note.  English  larks  are  very 
near  neighbours;  every  day  I  can  hear 
them  singing  at  "  heaven's  gate." 

We  have  all  been  as  busy  as  bees  since 
the  melting  of  the  snow,  humans  and  ani 
mals  alike.  Back  with  the  first  sugges 
tion  of  warmer  sunshine  Ilengist  and 
Ilorsa  began  to  crow;  alas  for  William 
178 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

the  Conqueror,  who  will  never  crow 
again!  and  my  many  queens  of  the  hen- 
yard  began  to  lay  and  cackle  as  boast 
fully  as  in  times  of  peace.  Every  living 
thing  came  crawling  out  of  hole  and 
hiding-place  and  took  up  its  task;  the 
little  gingerbread  woman  came  back  to 
the  lych  gate  to  sit  in  the  sun ;  Puck,  once 
more  one  of  the  family,  as  he  grazes  be 
yond  the  stream,  trotted  merrily  to  Shep- 
perton  again  and  again  to  bring  seeds 
and  young  plants,  for  1  intend  to  have  a 
garden  that  will  astonish  Peter  when 
Peter  comes  back  from  the  war.  It  seems 
to  me  that  there  is  an  added  touch  of  de 
termination  in  the  pony's  gait  and  in  the 
toss  of  his  shaggy  head  since  he  became  a 
hero  of  the  war,  an  upholder  of  the  king 
dom,  a  defender  of  the  faith. 

Madge  is  the  busiest  of  all  living 
tilings  and  will  not  be  idle-  for  a  moment 
for  fear  of  "thinking  lon.up."  Xevcr  was 
there  such  a  lie-scrubbed,  I)e-pol5shed, 

179 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

shining  house  as  the  little  red  house!  I 
tremble  for  my  own  face  when  I  see  her 
with  the  soap  and  sand,  the  brass  polish, 
the  silver  polish,  the  long-handled  mop, 
and  the  wooden  pail.  It  is  Madge  with 
a  changed  face,  with  deepening  lines  be 
tween  the  eyes,  a  worrying,  anxious 
Madge,  who  steals  the  newspaper  and 
reads  it  in  the  kitchen  before  she  brings 
it  to  me.  I  cannot  help  noticing  that  she 
talks  less  and  less  of  the  glory  of  Eng 
land  and  more  and  more  about  Peter. 
Laconic  post  cards  with  peculiar  spelling 
tell  us  that  Peter  is  alive  and  well  in  the 
trenches.  Peter,  because  of  his  old  expe 
rience  as  soldier,  was  allowed  to  go  speed 
ily  to  the  front,  and  is  now  at  close  quar 
ters  with  the  enemy. 

In  earliest  April,  the  little  red  house 
sheltered  the  grand  adventure,  the  great 
est  adventure,  for  death  seems  safe  and 
easy  by  the  side  of  the  great  adventure  of 
being  born.  I  had  a  whole  family  quar- 
180 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

tered  here,  father,  mother,  and  two  small 
winsome  children,  boy  and  girl;  we  tucked 
them  away  where  we  could.  And  a  wee 
man-child  came  into  the  world  during 
their  stay  here,  with  much  pomp  and  cir 
cumstance  and  attendance  of  mine  host 
ess  from  the  Inn,  and  of  the  village  doc 
tor,  whose  lot  in  life  has  evidently  been  to 
stand  helpless  and  aghast,  watching  mor 
tals  who  will  venture  into  a  world  which 
seems  to  be  no  safe  place  for  them.  If 
it  had  rested  with  him,  small  Jean  would 
have  had  no  chance  at  all;  but  Madge 
and  mine  hostess  came  to  the  rescue,  and 
all  went  well,  on  to  that  first  little  weird 
lonely  cry. 

It  was  little  bigger  than  the  Atom.  It 
slept,  during  all  its  first  days,  a  troubled, 
puckered  sleep.  Don  worshipped  it,  and 
whenever  it  cried,  <rave  an  anxious  whine 
or  a  sharp  short  bark.  In  the  Atom's  loft 
I  unearthed  a  prehistoric  cradle  that  may 
have  been  left  by  the  Danes  or  the  Sax- 
181 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

ons.  Of  course  I  know  that  rocking  is 
most  unhygienic,  but  I  thought  that  if  this 
little,  frightened  fugitive  mother  found 
any  comfort  in  rocking  her  baby  by  the 
fireside,  rock  it  she  should.  It  isn't,  I 
believe,  supposed  to  injure  anything  ex 
cept  the  brain,  and  the  brain  counts  for 
so  little  nowadays  in  the  contemporary 
ideal  of  development  that  I  am  sure  small 
Jean  will  have  enough  left  to  play  his  part 
in  the  civilization  of  the  future.  He  had,  I 
noticed,  square  and  sturdy  little  fists,  and 
he  may  be  some  day  one  of  the  many  who 
will  fight  for  England,  when  England's 
guests  defend  the  door  so  generously 
opened  to  shelter  them.  The  Atom  in 
sisted  upon  sharing  the  cradle;  why  not? 
It  had  discovered  the  cradle  in  the  first 
place  and  had  a  certain  right  to  it.  So  it 
curled  up  in  a  corner,  and  Jean  gurgled 
and  grew  fat  and  rosy  in  its  companion 
ship.  It  was  a  joy  to  have  a  real  baby  in 
the  house  while  the  birds  were  building, 
182 


THE    \VOHX    DOORSTEP 

and  the  spring  flowers  budding,  and  the 
young  ferns  uncurling  in  the  forest. 

The  father  of  the  family  was  a 
farmer  whose  house  and  barns  had  been 
wiped  out  of  existence  within  ten  minutes 
one  cruel  winter  day.  Mine  host  has 
found  a  place  for  him;  another  man  is 
needed  on  one  of  the  farms  belonging  to 
the  estate ;  a  small  house  there  was  vacant, 
and  thither  they  have  moved,  bag  and  bag 
gage,  baby  and  baby's  cradle.  They 
wanted  the  Atom,  but  the  Atom  and  I 
have  lived  through  such  haj?d  clays  to 
gether,  cheek  to  cheek,  that  I  could  not 
let  it  go.  The  new  house  is  not  far,  quite 
within  Puck  distance,  and  Don  and  I  make 
frequent  calls. 

May  30.  May,  witli  its  young  leavrs. 
its  radiance  of  blossoming  fruit  tree's,  its 
spring  greenness,  —  never  have  I  known 
such  green,  —  lingers  yet,  with  its  sweet 
spring  chill  and  its  ripple  of  slow  English 
188 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

streams  among  the  grasses.  Such  a  world 
of  beauty,  and  a  world  of  sorrow !  Petals 
of  apple  blossom  drift  even  through  the 
open  doorway,  and  everywhere  is  the 
murmur  of  the  little  wind  among  the 
leaves.  I  sit  in  my  garden,  under  my 
apple  trees,  or  walk  where  the  sunshine 
filters  down,  clear  and  still,  through  the 
lime  trees  in  the  lane,  thinking  of  many 
things.  Close  by  the  stream,  at  my  gar 
den's  edge,  grow  palest  purple  irises,  and 
at  times  they  seem  spirit  lilies,  delicate  as 
light,  growing  beside  you  in  your  far 
place. 

A  few  days  ago  Don  dug  one  of 
your  books  out  of  the  case,  —  he  loves  to 
touch  them  with  his  faithful  paw.  It  was 
Dante's  Paradiso  and  as  it  fell  open  I  saw 
that  you  had  marked  certain  words  with 
my  name:  "  dolce  guida  e  cara,"  "  sweet 
guide  and  dear."  That  was  too  beautiful 
a  thing  to  say  of  a  mere  mortal  woman. 

I  find  myself  thinking  consciously  less 
184 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

about  you  as  the  days  go  on;  a  touch  in 
the  darkness,  a  gleam  across  the  stars,  a 
whisper  by  the  river,  —  so  you  come  back 
to  me;  but  the  different  things  we  said 
and  did  do  not  return  with  quite  such 
sharp  distinctness  and  sharp  pain.  Yet  I 
exist  more  and  more  in  you,  living  your 
life  and  mine  too,  spirit  to  spirit. 

Loneliness  seems  forever  impossible 
since  you  went  out  and  left  the  gate  ajar, 
and  all  the  world  came  in,  and  all  its  sor 
rows.  The  griefs  that  enter,  in  some 
strange  way  solace  my  own,  and  this  in 
creasing  sense  of  the  anguish  of  the  world 
is  lightened  and  lifted  by  sharing  it  with 
other  folk.  It  is  good  to  feel  so  passion 
ately  and  so  utterly  a  part  of  all  that  lives 
and  throbs  and  suffers.  Though  the  life 
that  goes  on  in  the  little  red  house  must 
inevitably  lack  Something  of  the  human 
warmth  and  joy  that  we  should  have 
known  together,  more  life  and  greater  en 
ters,  I  think,  than  would  have  been  ours 
is:, 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

if  our  old  dream  of  happiness  had  come 
true.  One  can  bear  whatever  happens,  so 
long  as  it  makes  one  understand. 

I  started  out  in  loneliness  to  tell  my 
story,  to  you  and  to  myself,  for  comfort 
in  the  long  silences,  and  lo!  I  have  no 
story;  I  do  not  seem  to  be  merely  I;  I 
have  gone  out  of  myself  and  cannot  find 
my  way  back.  In  this  relieving  great 
ness  is,  perhaps,  dim  foreknowledge  of 
what  is  to  come.  I  have  nothing  left  to 
ask  of  life,  no  demands  to  make:  a  little 
service,  work,  and  sleep,  —  and  then  ? 

June  15.  Peter,  can  it  be  Peter,  with 
that  expression  upon  his  face?  He  is 
really  here,  and  a  transfiguring  look  of 
suffering  has  worn  away  forever  a  some 
thing  of  earth  and  of  stubbornness,  —  a 
Peter  who  seems  to  have  gained  greatly 
in  strength  and  in  stature,  although  one 
arm  is  gone,  and  an  empty  sleeve  hangs 
by  his  side.  If  I  had  known  how  to 
180 


THK    \VOHX    DOORSTEP 

.salute  I  should  have  saluted  Peter  when 
I  saw  him  home  from  the  war;  mentally 
I  do  it  whenever  I  see  him  working  with 
his  one  poor  hand  in  my  garden  beds. 
One  of  the  first  things  he  said  to  me  when 
he  came  home  was  that  he  was  going  to 
Shepperton  to  try  to  get  work  that  a  one- 
armed  man  could  do,  selling  papers  or 
something  of  the  kind.  But  Peter,  who 
has  faced  the  enemy  and  the  poisonous 
gases,  flinched  before  my  countenance 
when  I  heard  this.  Peter  knows  now  that 
the  little  red  house  and  the  garden  can 
never  get  on  without  him. 

It  is  odd  to  see  the  animals  with  him; 
Don  cannot  be  attentive  enough,  but  you 
would  expect  a  dog  to  understand.  Puck 
is  a  wonder,  standing  as  meekly  as  a  lamb 
to  let  himself  be  harnessed  by  a  one-armed 
man,  though  he  used  to  dance  an  ancient 
British  war-dance  as  the  straps  went  on. 
The  old  racial  love  of  fair  fighting  shines 
out  in  him;  man  to  man  it  used  to  be,  or 
187 


THE    WORN   DOORSTEP 

man  to  pony,  when  both  were  able-bodied, 
but  he  will  take  no  advantage  of  a  handi 
cap.  He  seldom  shies  now,  even  at  a 
feather  or  a  floating  leaf,  but  he  watches 
constantly  in  every  direction,  waiting  for 
some  great  danger  in  which  he  can  com 
port  himself  with  perfect  self-control  for 
the  sake  of  a  one-armed  man;  defying  the 
whole  modern  era  to  invent  a  mechanism 
that  can  frighten  him.  I  should  like  an 
equestrian  statue  of  Puck  not  shying  at  a 
Zeppelin! 

Madge  is  pathetic;  she  has  lost  her  old 
moorings  of  prejudice  and  conviction  and 
sails  in  an  uncharted  sea  of  life.  Church 
and  State  are  to  her  only  a  shade  less  rep 
rehensible  than  the  Germans,  since  Peter 
came  home  without  an  arm.  While  Peter, 
completely  changed,  and  loyal  to  the  gov 
ernment,  for  the  country  he  has  served  so 
well  is  his  country  indeed,  sits  with  her 
on  the  bench  by  the  kitchen  door  in  the 
twilight,  full  of  affectionate  talk  of 
188 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

"  Kitchener  "  and  "  Bobs  "  —  his  grief 
over  Lord  Roberts'  death  was  both  sin 
cere  and  personal  —  Madge  mutters 
fiercely  against  the  'Ouse  of  Lords  for  its 
selfishness  and  its  incompetence.  If 
women  ruled,  all  would  be  different!  Her 
condemnation  of  the  government  would 
suggest  that  she  is  in  a  fair  way  to  become 
both  an  anarchist  and  a  suffragette.  She 
never  would  have  let  Peter  go  a  step  to 
war  if  she  had  supposed  that  he  would  be 
wounded. 

Peter  came  home,  not  with  a  Victoria 
Cross,  but  with  an  Iron  Cross,  and  I  can 
never  tell  whether  he  is  joking  or  in  ear 
nest  when  he  explains  his  possession  of  it. 
When  I  asked  him  how  he  got  it,  he  re 
plied:  "  I  bestowed  it  upon  meself,  Miss." 
It  seems  that  he  had  taken  it  from  a  Ger 
man  with  whom  he  had  fought  in  a  terri 
ble  bayonet  charge. 

"  He  was  a  man,  he  was,"  Peter  says 
admiringly.  "  If  I  got  the  better  of  the 
189 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

man  who  had  earned  it,  it  stands  to  rea 
son  that  I'm  a  better  man  than  him  and  fit 
to  wear  it."  So  Peter  wears  his  Iron 
Cross,  to  the  wonder  and  admiration  of  the 
farmers  baiting  their  horses  at  the  Inn,  the 
blacksmith's  eleven  children,  and  the  in 
habitants  in  general  of  our  village.  How 
much  he  tells  those  eager  listeners  of  the 
horrors  he  has  seen  I  do  not  know,  but 
sometimes  from  that  bench  by  the  kitchen 
door,  I  hear  fragments  of  his  tales  of  suf 
fering  that  make  me  sick  and  faint.  Yet 
he  is  very  reticent  in  regard  to  it,  having 
evidently  a  feeling  that  he  must  protect 
others  from  knowing  what  he  has  known. 
As  I  make  his  acquaintance  anew  I  real 
ize  that  his  great  loss  is  truly  exceeding 
gain;  there  is  more  of  his  real  self  in  his 
wakened  mind  and  soul  than  he  lost  in 
his  arm. 

But  Peter,  invalided  home,  returned  not 
alone.    It  seemed  to  me,  as  he  came  up  the 
walk,  that  he  was  over-heavily  weighed 
190 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

down  by  luggage,  though  he  had  a  brother 
soldier  to  help  him. 

"If  you  please,  'm,"  said  Peter  dif 
fidently,  when  our  first  greetings  were 
over,  "  I've  taken  the  liberty  of  bringing 


some  one  'ome." 


"  Nothing  could  please  me  better,"  I 
said,  holding  out  a  welcoming  hand  to  the 
tall  soldier  at  his  side. 

"  If  you  please,  'm,"  said  Peter,  grin 
ning, —  if  heroes  can  be  said  to  grin, - 
"  she's  inside-/' 

He  opened  the  big  old-fashioned  basket 
lie  was  carrying,  made  of  osier,  a  kind 
that  I  remember  seeing  in  my  grand 
mother's  attic  many  years  ago,  and  there 
—  O  Pharaoh's  daughter,  how  I  under 
stand  you  now!-  was  a  little  child  of 
perhaps  ten  months,  asleep.  She  had 
M.t't  dark  hair,  hands  a  hit  too  thin  for  a 
baby,  eyes  that  proved  to  be,  when  she 
wakened  and  opeiu  d  them,  big  and  brown; 
and  a  mouth  that  had  learned  and  not  for- 
191 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

gotten,  like  so  many  sorrowful  mouths  to 
day,  how  to  smile. 

"Where  did  you  find  her?"  Madge 
and  I  cried  out  in  one  breath. 

"  She  was  in  the  village  where  I  was 
taken  when  I  was  wounded;  you  will 
hexcuse  me,  'm,  but  I  cannot  say  its  name, 
I  really  cannot.  A  woman  had  taken 
charge  of  her  for  weeks;  she  had  been 
found  quite  deserted  by  the  roadside,  I  be 
lieve,  'm,  earlier  in  the  war,  when  people 
were  trying  to  escape  from  the  henemy. 
The  nurse  used  to  bring  her  into  the  'os- 
pital  just  to  let  the  soldiers  see  her." 

Peter  was  disappointed  that  I  could  not 
speak,  but  speak  I  could  not. 

"  She's  a  French  baby,  'm,"  he  added. 
"  I  took  a  great  fancy  to  her,  and  when  I 
came  away  I  told  them- 

"  What  did  you  tell  them,  Peter?  "  I 

asked    sternly.      The    little    thing    had 

grasped  my  finger  and  was  trying  to  pull 

herself  up.    It  was  the  first  touch  from 

192 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

any  of  my  fugitives  that  seemed  to  come 
from  my  very  own,  and  I  knew  that  the 
French  baby  had  come  into  my  life  to 
stay. 

"  Knowing  your  'abits,  Miss,  I  told 
them  I  thought  I  knew  a  good  'ome  for 
her,  so  they  sent  her  on  with  a  nurse  who 
was  coming  back,  reserved  for  me,  as  it 
were.  They  kindly  allowed  me  to  bring 
her  down  from  London  meself,  but  I  'ad 
difficulty  in  'olding  her,  so  I  took  out  me 
clothes  and  put  them  in  a  paper,  and  she 
fitted  very  nicely  in  the  basket." 

Peter  still  mistook  my  silence  for  hesi 
tation. 

"  I  thought  if  you  didn't  care  to  adopt 
her,  I  would,  'm ;  but  from  what  they  told 
me  about  her  clothing  and  all  and  from 
the  look  of  her,  I  fancy  she's  rather  your 
class  than  mine,  'm." 

'  I  couldn't  aspire  to  your  class,  Peter," 
I  said ;  "  you  belong  among  the  heroes. 
We  will  all  adopt  her,  you  and  Madge 
193 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

and  I  and  Don  and  Puck  and  the  Atom 
and  our  English  queens.  Among  us  all 
she  will  get  a  well-rounded  training." 

The  stream  is  rippling  past  with  its  old 
music;  the  pony  is  grazing  in  the 
meadow;  my  June  roses  glow  within  my 
garden,  yellow,  white,  and  deep  red;  and 
still  the  vast  sea  of  human  sorrow  breaks, 
breaks  against  my  garden  wall,  and  no 
one  knows  whither  its  tides  may  draw.  Is 
it  thus  that  the  whole  earth  must  gain  the 
finer  knowledge  that  comes  alone  through 
suffering  and  learn  how  false  are  the  gods 
it  has  been  following  with  swift  feet? 

I  hardly  dare  confess  my  foolishness, 
but  when  I  saw  Peter  that  day  of  his  re 
turn  come  down  the  village  street  with  a 
tall  khaki-clad  figure  beside  him,  I 
thought  for  one  whole  blissful,  awful  mo 
ment  that  he  had  found  you,  living,  and 
had  brought  you  home.  Through  many 
such  moments  I  could  not  live;  all  the  joy 
194 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

and  the  anguish  of  time  and  of  eternity 
were  crowded  into  it.  Yet  even  in  that 
flash  I  knew  that  no  mere  human  contact 
could  ever  bring  you  so  close  as  you  are 
now  to  me.  Separated  by  walls  of  mere 
flesh  and  bone,  there  could  no  longer  be 
this  entire  one-ness  of  soul  with  soul. 
You,  beloved,  are  forever  too  near  to 
touch.  What  death  may  be  I  know  not, 
but  it  is  something  far  different  from  what 
we  mortals  think. 

Then  I  saw  that  Peter's  companion  was 
only  another  British  Tommy,  who  needed 
my  hospitality;  and  I  helped  make  ready 
his  beef  and  beer  with  great  gladness  in 
my  heart. 

.  .  .  Content  for  you.  Men  from  old 
time  have  died  for  the  faith  they  held, 
and  men  have  died  for  dreams.  T  know 
no  faith,  no  dream  better  worth  dying  for 
than  this  for  which  you  gave  your  life,  the 
dream  of  human  freedom.  It  is  our  race 
pride  that  a  passion  for  liberty  was  kin- 
195 


THE    WORN    DOORSTEP 

died  early  in  our  remotest  forebears ;  there 
is  no  nobler  task  than  keeping  this  divine 
spark  alive  upon  the  human  hearth.  In 
my  moments  of  insight  I  know  that  life 
has  no  greater  boon  than  a  chance  to  die 
for  one's  faith,  and  you  have  died  for  this. 
I  would  not  take  from  you,  even  if  I 
could,  your  hour  of  glory,  your  great  hour 
of  death. 


THE  END 


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MAR    2 


1940 


APR 


,  '(402H) 


Sherwood ,V .P. 

The  worn  doorstep. 


MAI.  22  '4C 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


